a dallas area synagogue yesterday. this was an act of terror. this is an act of terror. i wanted to make sure we got the word out to synagogues and places of worship that we re not going to tolerate this. we have this capacity to deal with assaults on particularly the anti-semitism that has grown up. after a ten-hour stand-off the hostages including the synagogue s rabbi were eventually released unharmed. the hostage taker died during the stand-off. this afternoon the fbi confirmed his identity as 44-year-old british citizen malik faisal akram. a statement from akram s brother said, quote, we as a family do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident. look, what happened yesterday was an outrage. synagogues shouldn t be placed where jewish american worshipers have to be afraid. synagogues shouldn t be places that require armed guards. and yet in 2018 we saw the pittsburgh synagogue shoot
loong, what happened yesterday was an outrage, synagogues shouldn t be places where jewish americans have to be afraid, shouldn t have armed guards, yet in 2018 saw the pittsburgh shooting, biggest massacre of jews in american history. the far right shooter there, just sentenced to life in prison. now you would have thought the start of the pandemic and lock downs led to reduction on attacks on jews in public places but no, 2020 was the highest antisemitic violence year in america. a long standing virus in our communities. there s a reason it s called the oldest hatred, ab yair rosenburg pointed out on twitter, jews are just 2% of the u.s. population and.2% of the world s population, it take as lot of effort to find us, but every
in 2019 we saw the poway synagogue shooting one jewish woman killed and three more worshipers injured. the far right shooter there was just sentenced last month to life in prison. now, you d have thought the start of the pandemic and the lockdowns would have led to a big reduction in attacks on jews in public places but no. 2020 was the third highest year on record for anti-semitic incidents in america because sadly anti-semitism is a vile, resilient, and long standing virus in our communities. there is a reason it is called the oldest hatred as was pointed out on twitter one thing people do not realize is jews are just 2% of the u.s. population and 0.2% of world s population. it actually takes a lot of effort to even find us but every year in western countries including america jews are the number one target of antireligious hate crimes. that is a scandal. the hostage taker last night reportedly wanted to free a pakistani muslim prisoner in texas convicted a few years back of trying t
year in america, jews are the number one target of antireligious hate crimes. that is a scandal. what has that got to do with four texas americans in a texas synagog? why take them hostage? whether it s the brown muslim far right, or white christian far right, attributing super powers to jews claiming they re responsible for all the world s ills both insane and deeply dangerous so we all have to fight against these tropes. in the wake of the pittsburgh massacre, the rabbi held hostage last night wrote a facebook post in which he says, too many times in jewish history, we faced tragedy without love or support.