On-site report from the Paris neighborhood where Sarah Halimi was killed by an Islamist radical
Yisrael Yoskovitch, Paris
It’s Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan, and young men dressed in gallabiyahs and flowing beards crowd the sidewalks as I’m driven along the Boulevard Périphérique, which divides Paris proper from the heavily immigrant suburban banlieues.
As an Israeli, I feel strange having to wear a mask again — back home, they’ve been out of fashion for a while now. A safety screen separates me from the dark-skinned taxi driver. Parisians don’t take chances when it comes to Covid. He whistles snatches of a wistful chanson, and periodically glances in the rearview mirror to check on his Middle Eastern tourist. There are no smiles.
As we enter the Belleville neighborhood, I’m getting reports about the latest outbreak of hostilities as Hamas and Israel trade blows. But forget distant Gaza — I’m here because of the violence on these very streets. It’s just four years since the horrific murder of Sarah Halimi, a religious Jewish doctor, put Islamic terror and this volatile neighborhood on the map. In Belleville to take up the story that Sarah Halimi’s son Yonatan told in these pages a few weeks ago, I’ve been warned to conceal my Jewish identity. I pull a baseball cap out of my suitcase, don a short windbreaker, and do my best to look inconspicuous.
The driver drops me off on a side street. After a three-minute walk, I reach the address, 30 Vaucouleurs Street. A fire truck is raising its rescue crane to one of the apartments, and a small crowd has gathered outside. I utilize the distraction to slip in unnoticed.
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