what it means to be Jewish in America -- 2019 version, part two

Part one was written in May.


Jersey City, New Jersey December 11, 2019

At first it seems like a random act of violence.

Two suspects engage in a gun battle with police in a cemetery.  They shoot an officer, then jump into a vehicle and flee.  A mile down the road, they jump out of the vehicle and run into a store, where they engage in an hour-long gun battle with law enforcement. The news reports say they chose the store at random.

It's a kosher supermarket, and along with a small synagogue and yeshiva it has become the heart of a enclave of Hasidic Jews, about 70 families who've moved to Jersey City from Brooklyn because housing is less expensive. There's a bodega down the block.  Across the street is a Catholic school.

Early reports of the shooting indicated that the shooters might have been in the bodega, not the kosher supermarket...

Six dead, including the suspects, a police officer, and three individuals who were inside the supermarket  -- the owner, an employee and a customer.  Tragic.

And then we hear the horrifying details...

One of the shooters was a member of an extremist sect of  Black Hebrew Israelites, which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center; they believe that they are the true descendants of the Children of Israel, and that the rest of us who claim Jewish heritage are impostors.  The male shooter's social media postings are virulently anti-Semitic. There are allegations that the two shooters were involved in a murder in Bayonne, NJ just a few days earlier.

And while we cannot ask the shooters (who died in the battle with police), security video seems to indicate that the kosher supermarket was, in fact, the target. the shooters drove calmly and deliberately to the store,  walked past  several pedestrians and did not begin shooting until they entered the store.

We have extremists on the right, we have extremists on the left....


Comments

  1. It is so sad. And so wrong. I do not understand Hate Groups or Terror Groups. My mind cannot fathom it. My mind, my brain, my heart is full of love.

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  2. We were discussing this very issue last night while watching the President recognizing and signing the Anti Semitism order (not that I am want to make my comment a political statement, mind you). It is a very scary world we live in, my friend. Jews & Christians are both being prosecuted while one side or the other get to say or act out...whatever happened to love thy neighbor? Love they.neighbor.unconditionally...it just saddens my heart. Hate is tearing this country apart...and I do apologize -perhaps I am making a political statement, which I really didn't mean too.

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  3. Linda, my friend, you and I are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. But on this we are agreed, the world is becoming a hateful place, and it is up to the good people of all political persuasions to put an end to it.

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  4. Maribeth, I wish there were more people like you in the world.

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  5. So hard to understand, just so hard. What makes a person's heart turn to stone so that he or she would do something like this?

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  6. So much hate in our world, and increasing every day. It's so easy to post your hate, find others who hate the way you do, and then do it. Sometimes they livestream the whole thing. Our world gets chilling more and more each passing day. How do we stop this, the good hearted among us cry? Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

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  7. I just don't get it. I guess I kind of get it intellectually as some people are just evil, but it's just hard to understand the whys of it all.

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  8. I don't understand something on how human behave.

    Coffee is on

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