Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on December 18, 2019

"We thought it was a gang fight," Steinmetz said. Unlike previous times, however, the bursts of gunfire intensified rather than dissipated.

Moishe Ferencz owns the supermarket, a symbol of the growing Hasidic community in this northeastern New Jersey city of just under 300,000. Steinmetz said Ferencz tried desperately to call his wife next door. She wouldn't answer. He wanted her to lock the doors and take cover.

"He was so nervous," Steinmetz recalled. "He was afraid to go out."

"It was like a war zone," Steinmetz said. "Like when you see clips from Afghanistan. I doubt there is one potato chip bag that's still full. From the amount of ammo they were shooting, I knew right there nobody was walking out alive."

Whatever differences existed between the largely African American community and the 100 or so Hasidic families who have settled here in recent years, they were united by the terror that gripped the rough-and-tumble residential streets of the Greenville neighborhood for hours.

The horror unfolded just after noon on a block with a bodega, a liquor store, a hair braiding shop, the kosher market and the Jewish community space next door. Bursts of high-powered rifle fire erupted on a drizzly afternoon in this rapidly gentrifying city across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

Helicopters hovered and heavily armed officers in formation swarmed the streets. SWAT teams and bomb squads rolled in.

The Catholic Sacred Heart School, across the street from the market, was on lockdown. Bullets shattered classroom windows decorated with Christmas angels. Terrified students from pre-K to eighth grade were ushered to the basement. They were later escorted to the adjacent church via a tunnel, according to parents. Area public schools were also placed on lockdown.

Residents protected children

At the synagogue and yeshiva, Steinmetz, 30, said he decided to check on the market. He said he scaled a gate in the back and made it a few feet from the market's rear door. A worker lay face down, apparently shot as he tried to escape, he said.

Steinmetz, who lives in Brooklyn but travels to Jersey City frequently on business, said he returned to the Jewish center. With others, he barricaded the rear door. They then rounded up about 100 children from the yeshiva and moved them to the back of the building.

"We didn't want them to hear the gunfire," he said. "They were terrified. We tried keeping them calm."

Some 100 families largely from the ultra-Orthodox Satmar sect have settled in Jersey City in recent years after being priced out of housing in the Jewish enclaves of Brooklyn, according to Jewish leaders.

They have had a symbiotic relationship with the mostly African American residents of Greenville, Steinmetz and others said.

"Why should they come to this place?" he said of the assault on the market. "It was targeted, because they could have run into so many other places. ... I felt safe until now, but right now I'm shaking, to be honest."

Steinmetz added, "It's the United States of America. Everybody has their own rights. Why shouldn't I be able to practice my religion?"

Orthodox community members have felt safe, he said.

"The locals were welcoming," he said. "They know we're doing good for the community. We're trying to fix up things and trying to make it better for everybody."

Rabbi Moshe Schapiro, of the Chabad of Hoboken and Jersey City, said he spent part of Tuesday afternoon with the father of two children who were at the yeshiva at the time of the shooting. They were unharmed, he said.

"We generally feel safe here in the United States," the rabbi said. "It's very scary and sad as we speak but we're not going anywhere."

The Jewish newcomers have always gotten along with the other residents, he said.

"There were some news reports of new people coming in, a new community in the last four or five years, but they got along very nicely with their neighbors," Schapiro said.

"What the impact will be going forward only God knows, but we just stay together, and we move forward," he added. "We don't run away from evil."

An entire community impacted

Outside Sacred Heart School, Tytianna Boyette, 44, was walking home Wednesday afternoon after picking up the belongings of her twin sons, Damil and Damir Mallory. The school was closed. Her 13-year-old eighth-graders stayed home.

A day earlier, Boyette said she heard a barrage of gunfire about the time students were returning to school from the cafeteria in a separate building on the same block. Many children hadn't taken off their coats when the shots rang out.

If not for the rain, students would have been enjoying recess in a nearby yard, according to Boyette, a Jersey City school bus driver.

Her sons' teacher sent parents a text message: the school was on lockdown. The teacher later called and said all children had been safely moved through a passageway from the basement to the church.

Boyette made her way to the perimeter of the shooting scene. The gunfire continued for nearly an hour, she said. Other parents had gathered.

"It was nonstop," she said of the shooting. "All types of rifles. Some of everything. We saw smoke going up in the air."

She felt helpless. "Just numb," she said.

Hours later, she was reunited with the twins. They described helping escort younger classmates from harm's way.

"This is not normal, even though this is what's happening in the world today," she said. "You have your isolated incidents with things in the neighborhood. This went beyond."

She was surprised the kosher market would have been targeted.

"They're here for the last few years," Boyette said of the Jewish community. "I really don't see any problem. ... They're to themselves. They're their own community."

Ruthie Thompson, 54, said she missed a call from Sacred Heart School. She heard on the local news about a shooting outside the school attended by her 12-year-old grandson Zamir Butler.

Thompson tried calling him. Then Zamir texted her. He later told her he believed the gunfire outside was thunder.

"I'm Ok but the teacher said no phone calls. I'll see you later at the house," Zamir wrote.

"Are you at the school," she responded.

"Yes but don't come because the police department doesn't want parents to pick up their children."

"Text me. I will pick you up."

"Ok. I will when we're released."

"Are you afraid?"

"No, I'm ok," Zamir wrote hours before being reunited with his grandmother.

Read more here:

These Hasidic Jews came to Jersey City for more affordable living. Now they're coping with fear and grief - CNN

Category: Hasidic
Tags: