jersey city hasidic community
Unlike previous times, however, the bursts of gunfire intensified rather than dissipated. 12/12/2019 08:31 pm ET. Police are still investigating whether it was a hate crime. Ferencz was 32 and a mother of five. “It’s beyond tragic,” Schnall said. So when a shooting erupted at JC Kosher Supermarket on Tuesday — killing four people in what officials have described as an anti-Semitic hate crime — it struck directly in the heart of the close-knit community. Next to JC Kosher is a local synagogue, where the community members would go to pray. Satmar Jews’ distinctive way of dressing is integral to practicing their faith ― but at the same time, it makes them targets for anti-Semitism. Members of the Hasidic Jewish community are seen outside 221 Martin Luther King Dr. in Jersey City in a file photo. Many had moved from Brooklyn to escape the borough’s high prices and had found a welcoming new home. As police officers tried to stop Anderson and Graham, children were only a building away, with community members who were there praying trying to keep them calm and safe. During the shootout Tuesday, Saldana hid in her nearby apartment. Then came the backlash. “As long as you’re a good person, good people are respected wherever they go.”, He added, “That never should have happened to the Jewish people yesterday, or the cops.”. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop tweeted Wednesday morning that “it has now become clear from the cameras that these two individuals targeted the Kosher grocery location.” But officials at a news conference later in the day repeatedly stressed that they could not definitively say what motivated the shooters. Jersey City’s Jewish community is only about five years old. The store, which some residents endearingly referred to … A group of Orthodox men were carrying a shiny new door to the building. “Once again, … The store, which some residents endearingly referred to as no more than a bodega, was where the Jews who lived in the neighborhood would go if they forgot to pack a lunch or needed some groceries before Shabbat. “It’s the last place anybody would have thought was dangerous. This is taking place in three places throughout the country in the past year, that people are being gunned down.”, Charles Barkley jokes about losing weight to dance the hora at daughter’s Jewish wedding, NBA player Meyers Leonard caught using anti-Semitic slur on video game platform, Trump showed off photos of naked women at a shiva, report says, This Jewish female artist from the comic book golden age was overlooked for decades, For over 40 years, this man bought millions of dollars of New York’s leavened bread products before Passover. ... Why this small bodega?”. “There has been a tremendous outflow from Brooklyn of young people,” he said. They got along with their neighbors and did not experience the anti-Semitic vandalism, harassment and assaults that have taken place recently in Brooklyn’s Hasidic neighborhoods. Hasidic Jews Moved To Jersey City For A Nicer Life. The incident started with the fatal shooting of a police officer at a cemetery before the two assailants, a man and a woman who were suspects in a homicide, holed up in the market, engaging police in a lengthy gun battle. Inside, boxes of children’s candy, cereal and croutons lined the shelves. To truly understand the situation, one must understand an essential fact about the Hassidic community – that they are an umbrella of a number of cults within the Jewish community. It wasn’t a danger zone, they said. “Nobody ever imagined this would be the place where any terrorist will come,” Silberstein said. Chris Murphy in attendance. “It’s a risk and it takes courage to move out [of Brooklyn]. The mayor of a New Jersey town has branded an influx of Orthodox Jews akin to 'an invasion' with residents claiming aggressive realtors are trying to bully them to sell their homes. They are part of a major movement of ultra-Orthodox Jews into communities around New York City in search of more affordable places to live. In a video circulated Wednesday in Hasidic group text messages, Harmon offered to help clean out the store for free and offered his best wishes to the Jewish community. When the store opened, residents no longer had to cross the Hudson River just to buy food — and people really liked the kugel. The small ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Greenville, Jersey City, consists of only around 100 families, a few schools, and a kosher market. Lavarro said the city had allowed residents to put “No Knock” signs on their doors to deter real estate developers and said that security could be increased in the area pending the result of the police investigation. Many Hasidic Jews have moved into the neighborhood where the shooting took place. “Without a grocery store, there is no community,” Silberstein said. This is taking place in three places throughout the country in the past year, that people are being gunned down.”. He said he did not know if the shooting was at all related to issues in the neighborhood. The victims in the store were identified by authorities Wednesday as Mindy Ferencz, 32, who ran the store with her husband; Miguel Douglas, 49, who is believed to have worked at the store; and Moshe Deutsch, 24. In recent years the Hasidic community started moving into Jersey City looking for more affordable options than Brooklyn. The couple had moved from Brooklyn, and the store they opened, JC Kosher Supermarket, became a cornerstone of the small but growing Jewish community of Greenville, a largely African-American neighborhood in this city across the Hudson River from Manhattan. “It’s frightening. The shooting in New Jersey is still being investigated by police, but the alleged shooters are thought to hold black supremacist beliefs — part of which is a rabid hatred of Israel and the Jewish people. But many are hoping that in time, the store will reopen. Placed in the context of the rising anti-Semitic attacks around the country, of which Hasidic Jews often find themselves the victim, the small community was left frightened. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop called the attack a hate crime on Wednesday, saying in a tweet it is clear the Jewish community in his city was targeted based on surveillance evidence. The … The grocery store is on Martin Luther King Drive, one of the neighborhood’s central thoroughfares. There are also Reform and Conservative synagogues in the town. IE 11 is not supported. If you were religious, JC Kosher was where you went, sometimes more than once a day. “We shouldn’t parse words,” Fulop said. The shooters, identified as David Anderson and Francine Graham, were found dead in the store. “There have never been any attacks or incidents with the Jews who lived there,” said Rabbi Avi Schnall, the New Jersey director for Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox organization. The sole kosher grocery for the 100 or so Orthodox families here, the store signaled that the community was there to stay, hopefully for years to come. (Laura E. Adkins/JTA News) Harmon said that he and other locals have had a good relationship with their new neighbors, though gentrification has increased tensions in the area. “I think we can do a better job of balancing preserving the culture, heritage and values of those who have been in the city in longtime residence, and balancing the needs of communities that are newer to Jersey City.”. t’s frightening. Schnall feared that, despite the largely tranquil feeling in Greenville before Tuesday, this is is simply the new reality: Jewish communities across the country are at risk. Leah Mindel Ferencz was a 33-year-old mother of three who owned the JC Kosher Supermarket with her husband as one of the first families to found a new Hasidic community in Jersey City. The grocery store where the shooting occurred functioned as a hub for a small but growing Hasidic community. JERSEY CITY, N.J. — On Martin Luther King Drive, JC Kosher Supermarket had become the center of a small but growing Hasidic community. And though Deutsch, the Jersey City Hasidic leader, sounded a harmonious note, a dispute transpired in the weeks after the attack over an anti-Semitic Facebook message posted by Jersey City Board of Education member Joan Terrell-Paige. The surrounding blocks are full of row houses in a rainbow of colors along with some empty lots. “It’s such a nice, tightknit community,” said Rabbi Shmully Levitin of the Jersey City Chabad, a Hasidic organization, who goes to the nearby synagogue almost every day to pray and would often shop at the JC Kosher. Residents said the shootout made the street lined with shops feel like a war zone. They didn’t just move out themselves, they actually built a business knowing and hoping the community would grow and the community needed this.”. As the community mourned, JC Kosher’s facade, which was destroyed in the shootout, was boarded up on Wednesday. Suspect in New Jersey shootings made anti-Semitic, anti-police posts. Moishe Ferencz owns the supermarket, a symbol of the growing Hasidic community in this northeastern New Jersey city of just under 300,000. These Are The Victims Of The Jersey City Shooting Six people, including two shooters, died during a shootout in New Jersey that appears to have deeply impacted a burgeoning Hasidic Jewish community. The expansion of Hasidic communities in New York's Hudson Valley, the Catskills and northern New Jersey has led to some anti-semitic rhetoric … We have to acknowledge and see one another.” Watch how members the Jersey City Hasidic Jewish community and the African-American community came together last night to bring a little bit of light and lots of holiday cheer to the grief-stricken neighborhood of Greenville in Jersey City. The Orthodox community is led by Rabbi Chaim Marcus. Another member of the local Hasidic community, Leah Minda Ferencz, co-owner of JC Kosher Supermarket in Jersey City was also killed in the Jersey Shooting. And Orthodox Jews in New Jersey and New York followed the situation on Yiddish-language social media groups, said Yosef Rapaport, a Hasidic community leader from Brooklyn, New York. Credit Bryan Anselm for The New York Times What’s more frightening is this is not a local issue. Shabbat shalom to the Satmar community in Jersey City, who experienced a horrific attack earlier this week. In March, a contract was signed for the purchase of a three-story building at 221 Martin Luther King Avenue in Jersey City to serve as the temporary shul. “It’s concerning that this took place,” he said. “The people walking past every day, they don’t have any problem [with the Jewish community],” Harmon told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. They Became Targets. A Hasidic man stands in front of JC Kosher Supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey, the site of a deadly anti-Semitic shooting, December 11, 2019. “It was horrible, like a movie.”. JERUSALEM (JTA) — The horrific shooting in Jersey City was unfortunately the third deadly anti-Semitic attack at a Jewish institution in recent years. Authorities believe Anderson and Graham intentionally targeted the store, and say the pair is believed to be responsible for the death of Jersey City Police Detective Joseph Seals, who was killed shortly before they attacked the store. By Carol Kuruvilla, Daniel Marans, and Rowaida Abdelaziz. JERSEY CITY, N.J. (JTA) — Every Friday afternoon, Leah Mindel Ferencz would cook hot kugel and cholent and serve them in the small grocery store she and her husband, Moshe, opened here about four years ago. Broken bottles and litter line the streets. Now the Jewish community of Jersey City, and their friends and family in New York, are reeling and wondering what comes next. Many members of the Hasidic community had scrambled Tuesday in the wake of the shooting, using WhatsApp to check in on loved ones, and communicating with their family throughout New York and the world to let them know they were all right. Speaking with Arutz Sheva Wednesday morning, Isaac Wollner, a member of the local Chesed Shel Emes organization, said the shooting took place in … Former Democratic New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who used to represent Brooklyn’s Assembly district 48, issued a video of local residents in the Jersey City neighborhood where the shooting took place blaming the Jews for the murderous attack on them: No AIPAC conference? Jersey City residents say the area has been gentrifying, with a boom in new construction in the past few years. JERUSALEM — The horrific shooting in Jersey City was unfortunately the third deadly anti-Semitic attack at a Jewish institution in recent years. “The police told me not to leave,” Saldana said. A Hasidic man stands in front of JC Kosher Supermarket in Jersey City, N.J., the site of a shooting that left three dead along with the two shooters, Dec. 11, 2019. “She was someone that we saw often, always a cheerful demeanor, always a smile on her face, really relaxed, very calm, very patient, just a nice person,” said Rabbi Shmully Levitin, a neighborhood resident and Chabad rabbi serving the city. Lourdes Saldana, who has lived in the neighborhood for 12 years, said even though she isn’t Jewish she loved going to JC Kosher, where the food was healthy and she would always buy the challah. ‘Democracy is not working’: An 8-minute interview with a member of the Proud Boys. Schnall drew a link between Tuesday’s shooting and the killings at synagogues in Poway, California, in April, and in Pittsburgh a little more than a year ago. Jews and our allies from across the country … Jersey City has seen a migration from Brooklyn of Chabad Lubavitch Jews and Satmar Hasidim. A woman and boy in the Greenville neighborhood in Jersey City, where several dozen Hasidic families from Brooklyn have settled. “There needs to be more awareness in the Orthodox community that we live together in the community. JERSEY CITY, N.J. — On Martin Luther King Drive, JC Kosher Supermarket had become the center of a small but growing Hasidic community. Jersey City Board of Education member Joan Terrell-Paige, seen at a meeting on Feb. 4, 2019, was critical of the city's Hasidic community in a Facebook post. Thousands of Orthodox Jews participated in a COVID-19 study last year. A woman and boy in the Greenville neighborhood in Jersey City, where several dozen Hasidic families from Brooklyn have settled. Less than a day after the shooting, JC Kosher is already rebuilding. The shooters also killed Moshe Deutsch, 24; Douglas Miguel Rodriguez, 49; and Joe Seals, a Jersey City police detective. On Wednesday, a plywood frame stood in front of the store entrance near a truck carrying what looked like drywall. Several chassidishe philanthropists have joined with chassidishe real-estate investors to transform Greenville into a chassidishe community with ample affordable housing. Nobody can afford to live here.”. The Black Hebrew Israelite movement has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. On Wednesday, as authorities worked to piece together Tuesday’s events, Greenville Jews gathered around the neighborhood to mourn and pray. Hasidic Jews outside 221 Martin Luther King Dr. in Jersey City on April 26, 2016. Then on Tuesday, Ferencz was gunned down in the store, along with an employee and a customer. Part of that change is from the Hassidic Jews moving into the area and has been the cause of discussion both in Jersey City and in the Jewish community of Hudson County. Douglas Harmon, 43, a lifetime Greenville resident and local building contractor, said most of the new arrivals are Jewish families. Down the street is a Pentecostal church, a mosque and a string of businesses. Religious leaders in Greenville already have been working together to assuage the tensions that often accompany gentrification, Jersey City Council President Rolando Lavarro told JTA. "We thought it was a gang fight," Steinmetz said. Community members said JC Kosher had become the community’s de facto hub, with Ferencz operating at the center. Anderson was a one-time follower of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, sources told NBC News, and his social media pages pushed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. We’re meeting for coffee on Zoom. “She was a wonderful woman,” said Mark Silberstein, who shopped there frequently, saying Ferencz, a mother of three, would often bring her children to the store when they were done with school. Moishe Ferencz owns the supermarket, a symbol of the growing Hasidic community in this northeastern New Jersey city of just under 300,000. Men from a company called Gold Star Restoration were hammering away. The Jersey City Kosher Supermarket, which opened three years ago in the gentrifying neighborhood, is the place where about 100 Hasidic Jewish families get their groceries. © 2021 jewish telegraphic agency all rights reserved. “We are not in the position at this time to say definitively why the suspect decided to stop in front of the supermarket and begin firing immediately.”. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. “It’s the only kosher grocery store in Jersey City,” Levitin said, “It’s devastating that something like this happened to them.”. “I think we can do better to be a welcoming city,” Lavarro said. Construction paused only for a prayer service at the adjacent synagogue, K’hal Adas Greenville, with New Jersey Gov. “Synagogues don’t have young children anymore. “We know there is significant speculation about the shooters’ motive,” said New Jersey Attorney General Gubrir Grewal. (Laura E. Adkins/JTA News). Areas and locations in the United States where Orthodox Jews live in significant communities. Yosef Rapaport, a Hasidic activist in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, said the new arrivals in Jersey City have been driven by rising prices that have made homes harder to afford in Brooklyn. Officials say it remains unclear whether the attack was motivated by anti-Semitism. Steinmetz said Ferencz tried desperately to … Schnall has worked with Jews and other local leaders in Greenville on building bridges with the neighborhood’s communities. No problem. But that all changed Tuesday when David Anderson, 47, and Francine Graham, 50, stormed the store with rifles, beginning an hourslong standoff with police that ended in both of their deaths along with three other people in the store. While the New Yorker article skirts around anything overtly anti-Semitic, even hinting that the Hasidic Jews of Jersey City are to blame for the attack on their own community is shocking. The shootout also led to the death of Jersey City veteran detective Joseph Seals and another civilian named Michael Rumberger. These are areas that have within them an Orthodox Jewish community in which there is a sizable and cohesive population, which has its own eruvs, community organizations, businesses, day schools, yeshivas, and/or synagogues that serve the members of the local Orthodox community and … Hasidic families usually have large families with 4-6 children and housing in Greenville is larger in size, with backyards and even parking which caters to their needs. The first results are in. Slain Jersey City Victim, Moshe Deutsch, Remembered By Friend Moshe Hersh Deutsch of Brooklyn was a 24-year-old yeshiva bochur who loved doing chesed. “To stop hate and anti-Semitism, we need to call it out quickly for what it is.”. Schumer calls on Andrew Cuomo to step down, Brazilian police raid church whose pastor prayed for another Holocaust, Ukrainian senior academic proposes to rename city of Uman for Nazi collaborator, Brooklyn rabbi who fled to Israel to escape sexual assault charges in 2010 extradited to US, Czech prime minister opens Jerusalem embassy office on COVID-related Israel trip with Hungarian counterpart. It was the only kosher grocery in Greenville, a historically black neighborhood where around 80 families who were members of the Satmar Hasidic sect, priced out of rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn, had moved here in the past few years. Members of the Jewish community pass by near the scene of a mass shooting at the JC Kosher Supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey on Dec. 11, 2019. What’s more frightening is this is not a local issue. his social media pages pushed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. “But things like this can happen anywhere.”, By submitting the above I agree to the privacy policy and terms of use of JTA.org, A Hasidic man stands in front of JC Kosher Supermarket in Jersey City, N.J., the site of a shooting that left three dead along with the two shooters, Dec. 11, 2019. One Dallas kosher grocer removed the mask requirement.