It happened again. The third time this year that Jewish people were attacked with murderous intent in a major US city under the guise of the assailant caring about the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza. It’s the second time that fires were set. The first happened when an attacker – a US citizen – broke into the official residence of Pennsylvania’s governor in Harrisburg, on the evening of Passover and set fire to the residence. The only thing that saved Governor Josh Shapiro and his family was a quick response from security guards, leaving only some Passover Haggadahs, the text that charts Jewish hopes for freedom and liberation from one generation to the next, to burn on the tables still set from dinner.
About two weeks ago, there was the murder of two innocent Jewish Israeli embassy workers who were attending an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee at the Jewish Museum in Washington DC on how to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza; these young people were chosen at random from a crowd apparently targeted intentionally since the murderer, again a US citizen, appeared to have wanted to hunt down and kill Jews in response to Israel – a sovereign country’s – military acts. Tellingly, the gunman had a brief association to the far-left Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL said in a statement that he was not a member and that his association with the group ended in 2017).
