Hanukkah in Jersey City After Terror Attack: ‘Good Will Always Win’

For many who stood outside JC Kosher Supermarket on Sunday night, a darkness had fallen over this year’s Festival of Lights.

It was here, less than two weeks ago, that two assailants attacked the market in an anti-Semitic attack, leaving three bystanders dead and shocking Jersey City’s thriving multicultural community.

But for Rabbi Moshe Schapiro, one of the organizers of a menorah lighting at the market on Sunday, at the start of Hanukkah, it was not all gloom.

“The first night of Hanukkah at the very place of this shooting, which created so much darkness and negativity, can bring light and positivity,” he said. “When we celebrate at a time like this, almost two weeks from a terrible shooting, we start thinking about what’s the meaning of the holiday?”

The menorah lighting is a central part of Hanukkah, which celebrates the victory 2,000 years ago of the Jewish Maccabees in their battle to regain Jerusalem from the Syrians. The menorah used to cast light as they rebuilt the temple there had only enough oil to burn for one night but instead lasted for eight.

The rabbi said that though the community was shaken by the attack, he and his fellow Jews still felt safe in Jersey City.

“The message of Hanukkah,” he said, “is no matter where we are, light will always win over darkness. Good will always win over bad.”

But it is hard to ignore a rising unease among Jews as reports of anti-Semitic attacks in the New York region rise.

This week, just days after the kosher market shooting, a Jersey City school board member called Jews who moved to the city “brutes” and suggested a deeper “message” about the attack in a Facebook post. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop condemned the post on Twitter.

A bias incident report published by the New Jersey State Police and the state attorney general’s office found that 35 percent of the 569 reported bias incidents in 2018 were motived by the victim’s religion. In 2018, 172 anti-Jewish incidents were reported in New Jersey, the same number reported in 2017, the report added.

“Between 2006 and 2018, Jews were the religious group most frequently targeted in reported bias incidents,” the report stated.

In New York City, anti-Semitic hate crime complaints have increased by 20 percent, according to data provided by the New York Police Department. The department received 213 anti-Semitic hate crime complaints as of Dec. 15, 2019 — 36 more than last year.

On Dec. 10, David N. Anderson, 47, and Francine Graham, 50, rushed inside the only kosher supermarket in the area, which served a growing Hasidic community, and opened fire on customers and employees.

A prolonged gun battle followed as the couple traded fire first with two police officers on patrol, then with law enforcement officers called in from Jersey City and neighboring jurisdictions. Rapid gunfire could be heard echoing around the area, located across the Hudson River from New York City, as residents ran from the area and took shelter.

Nearly three hours later, Leah Mindel Ferencz, 33, who owned the store with her husband, Douglas Miguel Rodriguez, 49, who worked stacking boxes and making sandwiches, and Moshe Deutsch, 24, a customer, were dead inside the market, as well as the attackers.

Joseph Seals, a detective with the Jersey City police department, was killed by Mr. Anderson and Ms. Graham after approaching them at a nearby cemetery before they drove to the kosher market. The two officers on patrol, Mariela Fernandez and Ray Sanchez, were injured. One was struck in the torso, the other in the shoulder.

The lighting on Sunday also served as a ceremony to pay tribute to Officers Sanchez and Fernandez, who prevented many others from dying, Rabbi Schapiro said.