Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Toulouse Killer Raised To Be Anti-Semitic: Brother

Abdelghani Merah has written in a book that his brother, Mohamed, was raised to be an anti-Semite long before he killed four Jews in Toulouse.

“My young brother was certainly a Salafist, but before he turned into one he grew up in this detestable atmosphere that accommodates anti-Semitism,” Abdelghani Merah reportedly has written in a new book about his brother set to appear this week.

Mohammed Merah gunned down three children and a rabbi on March 19 at a Jewish school. In a series of attacks that he committed earlier that month, he killed three French soldiers. A police marksman killed Merah during a police raid on Merah’s home, as Merah tried to jump out of the bathroom window.

The Merahs grew up with a “cultural anti-Semitism” and “despised the Jews,” Abdelghani Merah wrote in his book, according to a report in the French magazine Le Point.

Souad and Kader Merah, two siblings of Mohammed and Abdelghani Merah, “hated the infidels and particularly the Jews, without any distinctions,” Abdelghani Merah reportedly wrote.

Merah and his brother spent their summer vacations in Algeria, their parents’ land of origin. “The vast majority of our paternal family were supporters of FIs and GIA,” two militant Islamist groups.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.