Bernard Edinger, a retired foreign correspondent for Reuters and an old friend of mine, lives in a Paris suburb. On Friday, he sent me a translation of his invitation to friends to join a demonstration in Paris today.

Briefly, the background is this:

On Feb. 13, the police found Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Jew, near railroad tracks in the Essone, the area south of Paris where Edinger lives. Halimi was naked, handcuffed and covered with burns. He died before reaching the hospital.

The police have arrest 13 members of a multiethnic gang that they believe committed the murder. The gang had allegedly attempted several other kidnappings of Jews. The alleged gang leader, Youssuf Fofana, a non-practicing Muslim, fled to Ivory Coast, where he has been arrested. He is a convicted armed robber and French citizen.

The police characterize the killing as a hate crime.

There were more than 500 anti-Semitic incidents in France last year, from bombs at synagogues to graffiti. This number was down from 900 in 2004 but still 10 times the number that occurred 10 years ago.

Here is the message Edinger sent explaining why he was attending a rally protesting Halimi's killing:

"Because I have a daughter who is the same age as he was.

"Because I have exchanged an occasional greeting with his mother whenever I went to work at the Rachi Center.

"Because I am about to describe what happened during 24 days and nights less than two kilometers from where I slept peacefully.

"I want you to understand and visualize that in this year of 2006, in the Paris suburbs, Ilan Halimi remained naked in a cellar, handcuffed and gagged so that no one would hear his screams over a period of more than three weeks.

"There was a tiny hole in the gag to allow a minimum of food through a straw. A cigarette was stubbed out on his forehead with the words "That, it's because you're a Jew." He was repeatedly beaten and cut with cutters.

"He was, it is thought (we are awaiting confirmation from the state prosecutor), amputated of an ear and several fingers, without anesthetics, of course, screaming behind his gag with no hope of being heard.

"He received a deep wound from a knife before being soused in white spirits and set alight.

"Eighty percent of his body was covered in burns when he finally died in the ambulance, having at last been found agonizing in the early hours of morning near a station at the back and beyond of the Essone (Paris suburb). He was just a young telephone salesman, the son of poor working-class Jews from North Africa.

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