Learning about the Holocaust when the shooting started

Tormented by Florida shooting, ‘Jew Crew’ buddies find solace in each other

Six friends who met in elementary school and planned back-to-back bar mitzvahs forge new bond after narrowly escaping shooter’s path

In this February 15, 2018 photo, John Greenberg, center, 17, talks with his friends outside his home in Parkland, Florida. Greenberg and his friends are juniors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a former student shot and killed more than a dozen people on February 14. (AP Photo/Jason Dearen)
In this February 15, 2018 photo, John Greenberg, center, 17, talks with his friends outside his home in Parkland, Florida. Greenberg and his friends are juniors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a former student shot and killed more than a dozen people on February 14. (AP Photo/Jason Dearen)

PARKLAND, Florida (AP) — It was the final period of the day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High and Jonathan Blank was in history class, learning about the Holocaust. Across campus, five of his friends, pals since grade school, sat in different classrooms watching the clock. In 19 minutes, school would be out and the buddies had plans this Valentine’s Day: a little basketball and boys’ time.

Inside classroom 1214, the clock hit 2:21 p.m. Then: POP! POP! POP!

Instinctively, 16-year-old Jonathan hit the ground, taking cover under his desk. He smelled the chemical stench of gunpowder, noticed sawdust particles floating in the air: pieces of the classroom door that had been splintered by shots. Around the room, his schoolmates covered themselves with textbooks and took shelter behind filing cabinets.

One girl’s face was covered in blood. Nearby, a boy wasn’t moving. It struck Jonathan that he was probably dead.

In this February 15, 2018 photo, Jonathan Blank, center, 16, talks with his friends outside his home in Parkland, Florida. Blank and his friends are juniors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a shooter killed more than a dozen people on February 14. (AP Photo/ Jason Dearen)

Beyond the pockmarked door, gunfire sounded up and down the hallway, seesawing eerily between shots, then silence, shots, then silence. All that broke through the moments of quiet were horrifying shrieks — along with the groans of Jonathan’s wounded classmates.

The teen thought about texting his parents and of course his best friends, but he’d left his phone atop his desk and was too frozen with fear to reach up and grab it. Joey, Noah, John, Sam, Ethan — his band of brothers that had bonded over soccer, basketball and bar mitzvahs — Jonathan had no way of knowing if they were OK or if they, too, lay dying somewhere amid yet another deadly rampage inside yet another US school.

‘Jew Crew’

They cheekily called themselves the “Jew Crew,” these six friends who met playing sports in elementary school and who, at 13, had planned back-to-back bar mitzvahs so the parties would stretch on for weeks.

Along with Jonathan there was Joey Cordover, Noah Kaufman, John Greenberg, Sam Resnick and Ethan Rocha, who wasn’t Jewish but became an honorary “crew” member anyway.

In this February 14, 2018 photo, students run with their hands in the air following a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. (John McCall/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

The six jelled quickly and had been inseparable ever since, spending hours playing Xbox or just hanging out at Jonathan’s “the door-is-always-open” house in affluent Parkland, a suburb of gated developments and strip malls about an hour north of Miami. They’d even begun plotting to go to college together at the University of Florida but, as juniors, they had to get through high school first.

On this Wednesday, as bullets tore through Jonathan’s classroom in the shooting spree that would take the lives of five members of the Jewish community, Joey Cordover was on the opposite side of the school in study hall. Suddenly, the fire alarm sounded — the second of the day. The students sitting around him looked at each other, confused. At first they shrugged it off as a false alarm. Then Joey and the others looked outside and saw students walking to the designated meeting spot for drills. They decided to go, too.

Sam and Noah were in history class together when the alarm sounded. They, too, figured it was a false alarm, but as their class started heading outside someone screamed, “It’s a Code Red!” Translation: Shooting on campus. Seconds later, they heard gunfire. The two took off running for the street as heavily armed police darted past them back toward the school.

In this February 14, 2018 photo, students are evacuated by police from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, after a shooter opened fire on the campus. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

Joey also managed to make it out, leaving his backpack in a growing pile in the middle of the road, as instructed by police, but holding tight to his cell. At 2:33 p.m., his dad texted to check that he was OK. He said he was, but all around him kids were talking about students getting killed.

“At least 1 dead,” Joey texted his father. “Unreal.”

Another of the crew, John Greenberg, fled from a portable classroom and stood outside among throngs of terrified students. When someone said the shooter had possibly escaped, he decided to head home. Separately, Ethan Rocha also managed to make it to safety.

That left just Jonathan.

Outside on the street, where Sam and Noah stood together, rumors were spreading. They heard there may have been deaths in a history class, the one focused on the Holocaust. They knew Jonathan had that class during last period. Noah tried Jonathan’s number, but the call wouldn’t go through. Cell service was too jammed with everyone trying to reach their loved ones.

‘They shot my class’

Back in classroom 1214, in the building where 12 of the 17 victims, most of them students, would eventually be found, armor-clad officers burst in shouting, “Everyone put your hands up!” Jonathan raised his hands, sat up, looked around and saw ruin.

After about 10 minutes, the police told the students to get out. Jonathan walked past his fallen classmates into the hallway. There, two more bodies lay between him and the exit outside. He told himself not to look.

In this February 14, 2018 photo, teens, who walked out from the direction of the high school, are escorted by police following a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

Outside, surrounded by sirens and helicopters and sobbing children and parents, Jonathan texted his mother, who had already rattled off four urgent texts asking if he was OK. “They shot in my class,” he responded. “3 people shot in my class.” He would later learn it was four.

Then he turned to the group chat he’d set up for his “crew.” There was a message waiting from Noah.

“R u ok. Bro. R u ok.”

“Im traumatized.”

“Tell me ur ok,” Noah pressed.

“Im ok, 3 people shot in my class. Im ok tho.”

Ethan chimed in next. Then, within minutes, texts arrived from the other four.

The next morning, the six went together to a counseling session for students at the local YMCA. Then, as they so often had before, they gathered at Jonathan’s place. This time, they hugged each other tight and said, “I love you, man,” with no hint of irony or embarrassment.

“We don’t know what to do. It’s confusing,” Sam Resnick said, sitting on the sofa between Jonathan and Ethan.

“When we’re older and someone asks us where we went to high school and we say Marjory Stoneman Douglas they’re going to say: ‘Hey, that’s where the mass shooting was,'” Noah added. “They’ll put us in the same category as Columbine or Sandy Hook. It doesn’t feel real, honestly.”

People attend a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Wednesday shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, February 15, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Hours later, still together, the crew headed to Pine Trails Park for a community vigil and a chance to begin coming to terms with it all. Jonathan walked through the crowd, his mother following. His dark eyes were red. He saw his history teacher, Ivy Schamis, and the two spoke briefly. He gave his buddy John a hug, and then he started to sob.

The friends know this is only the first hard day of many to come but their connection, they said, is their key to finding a way to move on.

“We’ve created a bond you can’t break,” Jonathan said. “Going through a situation like this has brought us even closer together.”

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