Scene of terror attack in Jerusalem synagogue. 11/18/2014. Photo: Israeli Police.
The images will make you sick. Blood splattered siddurim. Torn tefillin. Smashed eye glasses. Pools of blood and loss of life on the floor of a holy place, a synagogue where just moments ago Jews were saying the Amidah in peace. And we don’t even have the guts to look at the victims with faces torn off by the terrorists’ knives.
This is not Kristallnacht in November 1938 in Nazi Germany. This is our homeland. A shul, a house of prayer, in Jerusalem. This morning.
This is Terror. The slow creep of violence.
And we cannot stay silent.
First they came …
Three weeks ago a Palestinian drove into a train station in Israel, murdering a woman and a three-month-old baby. And we shivered. And held our babies tighter.
Two weeks ago it was a carefully planned out assassination attempt on one of Israel’s leading right wing rabbis, Yehuda Glick, who was on a mission to enable Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, and some of us said, well, he’s fair game, it’s politics. He took a controversial stand. He was a public figure.
and i did not speak out.
Last week it was a murderous knife attack against an Israeli soldier, age 20, and some of us said, well, he’s fair game, he’s a soldier, this is war.
and i did not speak out.
Then it was a murderous knife attack against a young Israeli woman from Gush Etzion, age 26, and some of us said, well, this is awful, but she was living in the West Bank. It’s “occupied” territory. She was a “settler.”
and i did not speak out.
Saturday a 31-year-old Rabbi was brutally stabbed in the neck as he was walking to synagogue in Antwerp. Sunday night a 32-year-old Jewish man was brutally stabbed in the back with a screwdriver on the streets of Jerusalem.
And this morning, two armed men blasted into a Jerusalem synagogue just after the Amidah prayer, wielding guns, knives, and axes, and murdered four rabbis, three of them Americans, and the fourth a Briton. UPDATE: A 27-year-old Israeli-Druze police officer who saved numerous lives in the attack also succumbed to his wounds.
And Palestinians are celebrating in the streets.
We cannot explain away these attacks as politics. We cannot explain away these attacks with justifications because nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies the cold-blooded murder of Jews.
This is a war against Jews. In the land most holy to Jews. In the tiny country created to protect Jews from the mass murder of Jews after 6 million perished.
And we cannot stay silent.
… and there was no one left to speak for me.
We, who are protected by the safe walls of our synagogues in Minnetonka and Mendota Heights.
We, who are protected by the fact that we don’t “look Jewish.”
We, who think we are safe in the diaspora. And maybe we are. And thank God for that.
We, who are busy with our lives, and they are important. Our families, and they are precious. Our work, and it is necessary. We must take the time and the energy and the resources and speak out.
On Facebook. On Twitter. In conversations over drinks with friends. In letters to the Editor. With dollars donated. And of course, in writing articles, on TC Jewfolk and elsewhere – just write.
TC Jewfolk is your community. Your local Jewish news source. Your voice. We want to publish your thoughts and prayers and poems and cries and calls for action. About what just happened. About what we should do. About what this means for our community.
Have something to say? Email our editor.
(Photo: Israeli Police)
