For Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, the attack in Monsey had an eerie feeling.
“For me it was an ‘oh no, not again’ sort of moment,” he tells CNN’s John Berman.
Myers was at the pulpit of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in October 2018 when a gunman opened fire inside, killing 11 worshipers.
On Saturday night in Monsey, an intruder injured five people with a machete at a Hanukkah party held at the home of a rabbi.
“It made me sort of wonder, I don’t recall them selling licenses to have open hunting season on Jews, but it sure can make Jews feel that way,” Myers says. He also says we “cannot allow terror to win.”
A memorial for the victims of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. (Hane Grace Yagel/via JTA)
The rabbi says he cannot point to one “root cause” for the rise in hate and anti-Semitism, but singled out hate speech spewed by unnamed elected leaders and on social media as contributing to “this illness.”
“It sure makes you pause and wonder what’s going on in our society that people feel they have a God-given right to attack any human being for whatever reason they choose to,” he says.
— JTA
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