Molotov Cocktail Hurled at New Jersey Synagogue Welcome to the alarming surge of Jew-hatred in the United States. by Joseph Klein
https://www.frontpagemag.com/molotov-cocktail-hurled-at-new-jersey-synagogue/
In the early morning of January 29th, a man wearing a ski mask ignited a Molotov cocktail and hurled it at the front door of Temple Ner Tamid, a synagogue located in the town of Bloomfield New Jersey. The attacker was dressed in black with a shirt that appeared to have a skull and crossbones design on it as recorded on the synagogue’s surveillance video, according to a report in The Jewish Voice. Fortunately, nobody was hurt, and the Molotov cocktail failed to penetrate the shatter-proof barriers the synagogue had installed over the glass of its doors and windows.
Nicholas Malindretos, a 26-year-old man from a nearby town, was subsequently arrested and federally charged for allegedly committing the attempted arson. Little is known about the suspect except that he is reported to have made a very small contribution to Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential primary campaign.
This incident is yet another in a long line of anti-Semitic attacks against Jews and Jewish places of worship, which have been rising alarmingly in the United States as well as in other parts of the world. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “Antisemitic incidents reached an all-time high in the United States in 2021, with a total of 2,717 incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism reported to ADL.” The ADL added that this was “the highest number of incidents on record since ADL began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979 – an average of more than seven incidents per day and a 34 percent increase year over year.”
Rabbi Marc Katz, the current rabbi of Temple Ner Tamid, responded to the attack on his synagogue by noting that people “are feeling rightfully worried about the state of anti-Semitism because of how prevalent it has been lately.”
However, regardless of being fully aware of the prevalence of anti-Semitism today, it is no less shocking when an anti-Semitic hate crime hits so close to home, as Rabbi Katz observed. “I don’t think anybody ever expects their congregation is going to be attacked,” Rabbi Katz said.
As a former congregant at Temple Ner Tamid myself, Rabbi Katz’s words resonate with me. I was shocked when I heard the news of the attack. My late wife and I were members of this synagogue for more than ten years. We worshipped there on many Sabbaths and Jewish holidays. Our daughter went to Hebrew School and had her bat mitzvah at Temple Ner Tamid.
Now I live in New York City, which has the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel. You would think that there would be safety in such large numbers, but you would be wrong. There were 263 anti-Semitic incidents in New York City during 2022 alone: about one such incident sparked by hatred of Jews every 33 hours. Jewish victims of hate crimes in the city last year exceeded any other group by far.
Rather than prosecute such hate crimes to the fullest extent of the law, Manhattan’s progressive district attorney, Alvin Bragg, recently took the opposite course regarding a defendant who participated in a 2021 physical assault of a Jew. Bragg decided to offer an incredibly lenient plea deal to the defendant who took part in this brutal, unprovoked attack against a Jewish man in Times Square. The victim said that he was punched, kicked and pepper-sprayed during the assault, which required him to be hospitalized. The defendant is reported to have called the victim a “dirty Jew” during the attack and to have afterwards exclaimed that he would “do it again.”
A violent hate crime of this magnitude should mean a considerable number of years of jail time. But Bragg decided instead that a slap on the wrist plea bargain, stipulating a mere six-month jail sentence for this defendant, would be the appropriate punishment.
“It’s high time that the Jewish community mobilizes because what’s happening is that you can beat up a Jew and there are just no consequences,” Brooke Goldstein, founder and executive director of the Lawfare Project and founder of the End Jew Hatred movement, declared. “Now you have the district attorney reaffirming that by giving this sweetheart deal, sending this guy who has no remorse out on the streets to continue to terrorize Jews.”
Anti-Semitism is a virulent disease that has moved in recent years from the fringes of the extreme Left and extreme Right to the mainstream of society. It has become fashionable among some celebrities, at college campuses, in the left-wing media, and in the halls of Congress, for example, to use anti-Zionist, anti-Israel slurs as code words for anti-Semitic rhetoric and to supposedly justify anti-Semitic acts.
Anti-Semitic tropes appear all over social media where they can be shared instantaneously around the world. We have seen anti-Semitism in the guise of anti-Zionism raise its ugly head at the United Nations for decades.
Yet all the enemies who have tried to destroy the Jewish people for more than two millennia have failed. The Jewish community’s religious faith, history, and traditions live on, no matter what the haters try to do to extinguish Judaism’s eternal flame.
The name of my former New Jersey synagogue where the failed arson attack took place, Temple Ner Tamid, literally means the “eternal flame,” which is represented right above a synagogue’s Holy Ark to honor the presence of God.
“There is hate everywhere, and hate wins when we let it penetrate,” Temple Ner Tamid’s Rabbi Katz remarked. “When the weight of this grows too heavy, I remind my congregation that every day, despite what is happening, in Jewish communities around the world, babies are named, children are educated, people are married. Our religious traditions continue. No act of hate can stop the power of religious freedom.”
Amen!
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