Is This Our Old/ New Normal? The re-emerging scourge of antisemitic violence
(CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT, THIS PAGE) RICK LOOMIS/GETTY IMAGES; GREGORY BULL/AP IMAGES; BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
By Dara Horn
T
he third time there was a shooting attack against American Jews, The New York Times did not call me to ask for a quick op-ed, as they often did, and neither did anyone else. I presume this was because when something happens three times, it is no longer news. Perhaps these news outlets realized just how un-newsworthy this story actually was. People murdering Jews, as a 3,000-year-old global phenomenon, is pretty much the opposite of news. When no one called me, I felt profoundly relieved, because the things I wanted to say about it were no longer things that I could actually say. The third shooting attack, the one in Jersey City, N.J., on December 10, 2019, and the dozen or so other physical attacks on American Jews that followed in rapid succession
after it—some barely reported—were what privately changed me, perhaps because that third shooting happened at a kosher grocery store about 20 minutes from my house. Unlike after the synagogue attacks in Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018, and in Poway, Calif., near San Diego, on April 27, 2019, information on the Jersey City attack was slow to accumulate. The two assailants first killed a livery driver (it was later discovered that they had Googled his Jewish-sounding surname), then progressed to killing a police officer who had noticed their stolen U-Haul and then proceeded to attack the grocery store, resulting in a protracted gun battle in which the grocery’s owner, a customer and a store worker were killed, along with the two assailants, who were killed by police after an exchange of fire that lasted
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
well over an hour. The scene in the city was dramatic: Entire neighborhoods swarmed with state troopers and the National Guard, and children in nearby schools were held in lockdowns until late into the night. The event was initially reported as a kind of perp chase gone horribly wrong, during which criminals outrunning cops ducked into a random store for cover. But antisemitic screeds found in the attackers’ vehicle and on their social media posts told a different story. So did the tactical gear they wore, the massive stash of ammunition and firearms they brought along, and security camera footage showing them driving slowly down the street, checking addresses before parking and entering the market with guns blazing. Their real targets, authorities surmised, were likely the 50 Jewish children in the private elementary school at the same address, directly above the store—all of whom huddled in closets for the
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