Jews & Money

About The Film

The shocking 2006 torture and killing of a young Jewish man in the outskirts of Paris are investigated in JEWS & MONEY, a damning exposé of anti-Semitism in contemporary France.

Ilan Halimi was abducted, held hostage under barbaric conditions for more than three weeks, and later died en route to the hospital after being discovered naked, burned and beaten. His kidnappers had demanded $500,000 in ransom, convinced that since Halimi was Jewish, his family must be rich. In fact, the 23-year-old, a cell phone salesman, came from a modest working-class background. Twenty-seven youth gang members were arrested, their subsequent trial sparking worldwide outrage and exposing anti-Semitic tension in the African-Muslim immigrant neighborhoods of Paris.

In search of the social and historical context behind the murder, Emmy-award winning filmmaker Lewis Cohen traces the age-old, rich-Jew stereotype, from medieval moneylenders to Nazi propaganda to international capitalism. Also featured are powerful interviews with the victim’s mother, lawyers for both sides, and the journalists who covered the notorious hate crime and its effects on France.