Second Shabbat Attack on Synagogue Congregants

Nadene Goldfoot                                               

Cousin Rabbi Abraham Goldberg on left
Rabbi Moshe Twersky on Right

                                  On Remembering Our History So As Not To Be Repeated

"On the morning of 18 November 2014, two Palestinian men from Jerusalem entered Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue, in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel, and attacked the praying congregants with axes, knives, and a gun. They killed four dual-nationality worshippers, and critically wounded a responding Druze Israeli police officer, who later died of his wounds. They also injured seven male worshippers, one of whom never woke up from a coma and died 11 months later. The two attackers were then shot dead by the police. " One of those killed was my cousin, Rabbi Avraham Goldberg, my partner in genealogy searches who had a Goldfoot on his tree. " 

"Killed were American-Israelis Rabbi Moshe Twersky (59; head of the Toras Moshe kollel, son of Harvard professor Rabbi Isadore Twersky, and part of a Boston rabbinical dynasty); Rabbi Calman Levine (55); and Rabbi Aryeh Kupinsky (43); and British-Israeli Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Goldberg (68), the first four rabbis resided in Har Nof; and Master Sergeant Zidan Saif (30), the Druze police officer shot in the head during the attack and rescue response, who later died from his wounds.   Saif lived in the Northern Israeli Druze village of Yanuh-Jat, and was father of a 4-month-old daughter.
                                                    

At approximately 07:00, during the weekday Shacharit morning prayer, as the worshipers were saying the silent amidah standing prayer, two Arab men from Jerusalem entered Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue, in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel, and attacked the worshippers with axes, meat cleavers, and a gun.

One of the worshippers fought back and hit a terrorist on the head with a chair twice, before escaping upstairs.

The terrorists killed four dual-national worshipers and a responding Druze Israeli police officer, and injured seven male worshipers, one of whom never woke up from a coma and died 11 months later. It was the deadliest terror attack in Jerusalem since the Mercaz HaRav massacre in March 2008.

Two traffic policemen who heard gunfire came running to the synagogue, and engaged the attackers in a gun battle. A third policeman arrived shortly after, and shot both attackers dead. Two policemen were wounded, one of whom subsequently died from his injuries.

The first responder was a Druze Israeli police officer, Zidan Saif. He was critically wounded when he was shot in the head during the ensuing gun battle, and later died.

The perpetrators shouted "Allahu Akbar!" as they attacked the worshipers."

Ironically, this past October 28. 2018 but in the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh, 

Pennsylvania's "Tree of Life" Synagogue was hit by an anti-Semitic hater, Robert

Bowers,  who managed to massacre 11 Jews attending  Bris-the naming of an

8 day old boy which attracted his family to attend this morning's service. This

large Conservative synagogue was very popular within a Jewish community with

nearby Carnegie Mellon University, where another cousin of mine had attended

many years ago.  They immediately went on lockdown as did surrounding homes.

Bowers was a true white supremecist, hating all who weren't in his opinion; 

Blacks, Jews, who screamed at the congregants, ALL JEWS MUST DIE!  He

had been obsessed with an old group called HIAS, which stood for Hebrew

Immigrant Aid Society which started in 1881 till 1945. 

 and then  the State Dept asked HIAS to aid in resettling 3600 Vietnam refugees.  He

had hit some boiling point when he wrote on facebook that "THEY ARE KILLING ALL MY

PEOPLE.  I'M GOING IN!.  Obviously, that meant going into the synagogue to kill. 

So there Robert was, all prepared to kill Jews.  There was no security system at the door.

A doctor in the neighborhood could hear the shooting from his home, so he hurried to help.

Past president Michael Eisenburg also rushed to help when he realized what was going on.

Rabbi Jeffrey Meyers had heard a commotion sounding like the hangers in the closet  of

crashing metal  at about 9:45am when the service started. He had never heard gunfire in his

whole life, but instantly knew this was it and yelled to his congregents to get down.  The

sanctuary's walls filled with pock marks from gunfire.  The shooter was coming up the stairs.

Eight congregants were in the back in the line of fire. 

 The rabbi, standing and in line of fire,

(Photo: Jeff Swensen, Getty Images

ran towards the bathroom area and hid where SWAT found him and got him out to safety, but 4 of them were shot.  Others in another closet had opened their door thinking all was safe, but he was right there and shot those hiding.  

In the end, Robert was shot and taken to the hospital.  NBC had a survey this morning wondering if places of worship needed armed guards.  The vote was about 90 to 10

against the idea from this one morning survey.  

As long as this is not a perfect world, we will need protection from crazies who go off the

edge into deadly behavior towards others.  All want to live in an open society, but who is

going to protect us as it isn't?  Isn't this why our police are armed?  As long as anti-Semitism

continues, Jews are at risk.  As long as hatred towards Blacks exist, Blacks are at

risk.  Evidently we have a lot of trust that we will remain protected.  So the answer is to

watch a society and its attitude towards both people.  When people are becoming tense

and are apt to blame all problems on the smallest of different groups such as Jews, who are only 2% of the USA population and the most selected for hatred, be prepared.  

There's so much left unsaid to Rabbi Goldberg.  At the time, I hadn't discovered DNA testing. I didn't find out who his Goldfoot was, but knew it was on Stanley Goldfoot's line.  He told me to look for an Abraham and that would connect the 2 lines of South Africa and

the USA together.  He was right; my father's 3rd brother who died in infancy was an Abraham.  Chances are that Abraham was my 3rd cousin.  We'll never know now.  He

hadn't even told me he was a rabbi.  That was such a shock to find out after this horrific

shooting that he was the one and the same person.  Without him, I wouldn't have known

that our family had come from Lithuania, knowing only that it was Russia as listed on census

information.  At the time, the Pale of Settlement countries had been taken over by Russia. 

"The Anti-Defamation League said it was the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in US history."  This was the 3rd massacre on Jews; 2008, 2014, and 2018.  

UPdate:  
There was a previous Rabbi Abraham Goldberg.  I wonder if he's related to the other. Avraham Goldberg (Hebrew: אברהם גולדברג, January 22, 1913 – April 13, 2012) was an Israeli talmud scholar. "Goldberg was born in Pittsburgh, and was educated at yeshivot Torah V'Daat and Chafetz Chaim, as well as at the University of Pittsburgh, where he studied English literature. He was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1941.

After serving as a chaplain in the United States armed forces during World War II, Goldberg moved to Israel to study at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he remained until his retirement. In 1952 Goldberg received a PhD in Talmud from Hebrew University, with a critical edition of Massechet Ohalot serving as his dissertation.

After graduation, Goldberg served at the Hebrew University as professor and professor emeritus of Talmud, as well as chair of the Talmud department. He also served as visiting professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary and University of Pennsylvania."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avraham_Goldberg

Books

  

Resource:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Jerusalem_synagogue_attack

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/son-boston-rabbi-killed-jerusalem-synagogue-article-1.2014515

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/18/synagogue-murders-binyamin-netanyahu-despicable-murderers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIAS
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/middle-east-unrest/three-americans-among-four-rabbis-slaughtered-jerusalem-synagogue-n250556

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/10/29/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-what-we-know/1804878002/
https://www.thejc.com/news/world/photo-gallery-many-dead-in-tree-of-life-synagogue-shooting-in-pittsburgh-1.471617

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