Orthodox Jewish Woman In Paris Stabbed, Thrown Out Third-Floor Window To Her Death By Man Allegedly Yelling ‘Allahu Akbar’

On Tuesday morning, Sarah Halimi, a 66-year-old Orthodox Jewish woman living in Paris’ Jewish community, was stabbed in her bed and then pushed out of the window of the third-story apartment where she fell to her death. The alleged attacker, a 27-year-old Muslim, reportedly yelled “Allahu Akbar” as he shoved Halimi out the window, according to Halimi’s neighbors.

During the subsequent police investigation, the suspect reportedly asserted that the Koran had commanded him to murder her.

On Thursday, Halimi, a trained physician, was buried at the Har Hamenuhot cemetery in Jerusalem. Her son, Yonatan Halimi, said:

It’s written in the Jewish code of law that you don’t eulogize in the month of Nissan, and you always said that if it’s written not to do something, don’t do it. But it’s not written that it’s forbidden to cry. The whole house of Israel will cry for the fire burned by G-d. What did she feel in those final moments of her life toward that evil man? Mother, I am sure that you fought, because your whole life was a battle. A battle for mitzvot (Torah commandments), a battle for learning, a battle for education. When we read the weekly Torah portion about the sacrifices we didn’t understand that you are a Korban “Olah,” devoted entirely to G-d. All her life, mother worried about our education, all her life she was devoted to teaching us the ways of holiness. She was the sacrifice of all of Israel. An eternal flame will burn on the altar, it will not be extinguished.

Le Parisien simply wrote, “A woman dies defenestrated in Paris, a neighbor arrested.”

“All her life she was devoted to teaching us the ways of holiness.”

Yonatan Halimi

Halimi is survived by a son who lives in Israel and two daughters who live in France.