Where your favorite blogs come alive
Tomorrow, October 27th, marks the 5th anniversary of the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting. For any of those who may not remember or forgot a few details, especially outside of the US: in 2018, a man named Robert Bowers went into the Tree of Life Synagogue during their Shabbat morning services and opened fire. 11 Jews lost their lives. On August 3, 2023, Robert Bowers was sentenced to death for this antisemitic crime. This was the worst mass shooting of Jews in the US to date.
Yesterday, October 25th, Jewish students at Cooper Union, a college in New York had to barricade themselves in the library while 'protestors' banged on the doors and shouted 'Free Palestine'. Note that the students had done absolutely nothing to cause this and have absolutely no power to do anything about the situation in the Middle East. This was an antisemitic attack, not a protest. You don't trap people for a protest. That's basic protesting rules. Disrupting is NOT the same as trapping. Peaceful protesting is defined as not blocking doors. Even if the students had opened the doors the demonstrators were right there and threatening. Not peaceful. It took over 40 minutes for the students to be safely escorted out of the building.
Also yesterday, a 6-person family in LA was woken up at approximately 520am by a man who kicked in their door and was wielding a knife. Blessedly (somewhat) he had entered the master bedroom first where he confronted the husband and his pregnant wife (at 9 months which means any amount of stress could put her into labor and put her baby at risk). All four children were also at home. Luckily the husband was able to fend off the knife-wielding antisemite. Multiple reasons he knew they were Jewish range from the mezuzah on their door to the fact he is apparently a neighbor and had talked to them before a few months previous where he found out they are Israeli. He apparently was drunk but had the wherewithal to state his intentions: he was going to kill them because they are Jews.
October has not been kind to Jews in the past few years and especially not this week in particular. Please, we are not okay. We are very tired and hurt and scared.