By Chaim Silberstein

BEIT EL, West Bank (JTA) — I watched the news of the terrible Jersey City shooting last week with both horror and a sense of deja vu. Sadly, violent attacks against Jews, wherever we live, have become all too common. We can no longer assume our communal spaces and houses of worship are safe.

Each terror attack is different, and no one knows exactly what it is like to be the victims of the most recent attack except the Jersey City community. But as a fellow survivor of terror that ripped at the seams of my family, I want to lend my support and share my story, which I believe shows that even during the worst of times, human kindness finds a way to shine. 

The scourge of terrorism entered my own life almost exactly one year ago. On Dec. 9, 2018, my life was shattered when two Hamas terrorists committed a drive-by shooting on my daughter Shira, her husband Amichai and five others. Shira then was seven months pregnant with her first child and my first grandchild. The Hamas terrorist savagely used a Kalashnikov rifle to do the most damage possible. Shira nearly died after the bullet tore a path from her thigh to her abdomen, leaving a 6-inch wide exit wound.

That day was one of extremes and colossal evil, but also unimaginable goodness. When Shira and her fellow victims were shot, two first responders from Magen David Adom, stationed only 1,000 feet away, heard the attack unfold. The paramedics, Betzalel and Benzi, initially believed the sounds had come from firecrackers. But after hearing blood-curdling screams, the two sped toward the danger in their ambulance. They reached Shira in just over 60 seconds.

According to regular protocol, the first ambulance on the scene must wait for a second ambulance to leave in the case of a mass shooting situation. The next ambulance was five minutes away, and Betzalel decided to break protocol and evacuate Shira immediately, likely saving my daughter’s life. 

As Benzi drove the vehicle, Betzalel administered lifesaving care to Shira, pumping liquids into her body to stanch the bleeding and earn her some time. He needed both of his hands for this procedure, and Shira bravely inserted her own fist into her wound to slow the bleeding so that Betzalel could finish the job.

Benzi also took heroic measures to save Shira’s life. Road construction was bound to slow down their passage to Jerusalem, so Benzi called the army and pressured it to open a special security road that would make the trip much quicker. The road passes through a dangerous Arab village, and the army requires that vehicles be bulletproof in order to take this route. Benzi was luckily driving one of MDA’s few bulletproof vehicles, and access was granted. This allowed a trip that usually takes 45 minutes to be completed in only 19 minutes.

Shira was rushed into the operating room at the hospital and underwent radical and invasive surgery. Benzi and Betzalel were correct that Shira had no time to lose: The head of surgery told us that if Shira had arrived three minutes later, she would have suffered irreversible brain damage. Five minutes later and she would have been dead.

Shira’s unborn child, the surgeon told us, had saved her life. Pregnant women produce extra blood to nourish their babies, especially as the pregnancy advances. Shira’s baby was delivered prematurely, at seven months, through an emergency C-section as the doctors operated simultaneously on Shira. But her newborn son – my grandson — would live only briefly, as the lack of oxygen and blood robbed him of any chance of survival.

Shira and Amichai spent a few short moments with their child before he succumbed. Named Amiad Yisrael, which in Hebrew means “the nation of Israel is eternal,” he was interred in a heartrending ceremony that his mother and father could not attend due to their own injuries. He was Israel’s youngest-ever terror victim.  

A couple of months ago, during the festival of Sukkot, there was a ceremony dedicating a new mobile intensive care unit ambulance in memory of Amiad Yisrael. During the ceremony, Amichai pronounced words that will forever remain with me: “Our heroes are the ones who protect life and those who save lives … We hope, please God, the ambulance will be used only for happy occasions. We bless the dear MDA teams with the verse from the book of Psalms: ‘for He (God) will order His angels to guard you wherever you go.’”

For me, terror became personal with the attack on Shira and Amichai and the murder of my grandchild. Israel faces merciless, shameless enemies who will strike us anywhere and anytime the opportunity presents itself. 

Nonetheless, the forces of good remain just as strong, if not stronger. There are countless men and women who run in the direction of danger and rush to the aid of others in the most dire circumstances. Such was the case with Benzi and Betzalel, and so many paramedics and emergency personnel who work with organizations like MDA. We are grateful to the well-trained paramedics for saving our children’s lives. And the ambulance, too: It was Shira’s chariot of mercy.

The human capacity for goodness was also on display in Jersey City, where the heroic Douglas Miguel Rodriguez held open the back door of the kosher grocery store so that Chaim Deutsch could escape, costing him his life. Police officers valiantly engaged in an hours-long shootout, likely saving the lives of dozens of Jews in the yeshiva next door, according to the Jersey City mayor. Concerned Americans sent thousands of pounds of kosher food to the Jersey City community in the days that followed. 

The human kindness and courage found when confronted with evil in the attacks on the Jews of Jersey City and around the world remind us what we all are capable of. As we approach Hanukkah, the season of light and hope, let us hope for — and create — more light in the face of such darkness.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

Petra Marquardt-Bigman

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

BAT YAM, Israel (JTA) — It was an honor for the young but popular Imam Omar Suleiman to be invited to deliver the opening prayer for a session of the U.S. House of Representatives. Suleiman is the founder and president of the Texas-based Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, which proudly announced the occasion and promoted it on its website and social media.
His short and passionate prayer included words about love, unity, justice, peace and reconciliation, as well as a call to “be for truth, no matter who or for is against it.” [sic]
But his appearance in Congress quickly became politicized. Rep. Lee Zeldin tweeted that allowing Suleiman to give the opening prayer was “totally unacceptable.”
“Totally unacceptable that @SpeakerPelosi had Omar Suleiman give the opening prayer yesterday in the House. He compares Israel to the Nazis & calls them terrorists, supports Muslim Brotherhood, incites violence calling for a Palestinian antifada & the end of zionism, etc.”
Two years ago I wrote a piece for The Algemeiner documenting Suleiman’s call for “the beginning of the end of Zionism” and a 2014 Facebook post in which he said that “Zionists are the enemies of God,” among other things. I had come across Suleiman only because I was writing a post on Linda Sarsour’s hostile views on Israel.
During the course of my investigation, I noticed that the newly prominent co-chair of the Women’s March and Suleiman were complimenting each other on Twitter. The articles Sarsour shared about Suleiman painted a glowing picture: One described him as “a new kind of American imam” with “a wildly popular social-media presence, with more than a million likes on his Facebook page and tens of millions of views for his YouTube sermons.”
Since my work focuses on anti-Semitism and anti-Israel activism, I was mostly interested in whether Suleiman shared Sarsour’s views on Israel. What I found was rather shocking, particularly given that Suleiman’s vast social media following allows him to spread his views far and wide.
Suleiman, in his 30s and originally from New Orleans, rose to prominence due to his interfaith work and community organizing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He began studying Islamic texts in 2000, and has taught Islamic studies at the university level since 2008. He holds several advanced degrees and is in the process of completing a doctorate from the International Islamic University of Malaysia in Islamic thought and civilization.
In 2014, Suleiman repeatedly called for a new intifada inspired by religious fervor during Ramadan and in defense of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In another post, Suleiman cursed “Zionists” as “the enemies of God, His Messengers, sincere followers of all religions, and humanity as a whole.”
It was thus hardly surprising that Suleiman also compared “apartheid Israel” to the “Nazis,” claimed that Gaza was enduring “a Holocaust,” denounced the “Israeli regime” as “terrorist,” and compared the Israeli army to the Taliban.
As I noted in my 2017 piece, Suleiman seemed to become more restrained in his public commentary on Israel after 2015.
But in the course of watching some of his religious lectures, I realized that with regard to Jews, his theological views were perhaps also rather problematic: In one lecture from 2012, he seemed to cast the Bani Israel (sons of Israel, or Jews) as the ultimate, horrifying “Other” put on earth to serve as an example of sinful behavior. Even more alarming was another lecture he gave in 2016 on “Masjid Al-Aqsa: The occupied sanctuary.” Suleiman completely erased Jewish history and presented the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, as rightful Muslim patrimony from the beginning of time.
Sometime on or before August 2017, Suleiman apparently became aware that some of his views are polarizing. On Aug. 3 of that year, Suleiman posted a sort of mea culpa on Facebook, concluding, “I ask my Lord and all of you to forgive me for anything I’ve ever said, written, or done that hurt you.”
On Aug. 8, he also added a page to his website on anti-Semitism, writing, “I have never condoned anti-semitism. I have worked with the Jewish community in vibrant interfaith partnerships for over a decade.”
In the wake of this most recent controversy, Suleiman wrote an article in The Dallas Morning News in which he referenced his work with the Jewish community and past “regretful” controversial posts. He stated that “one thing I’ve never been is anti-Semitic.”
The article’s title sums up Suleiman’s take: “Hateful attacks cannot silence voices of unity and love” — which is to say, Suleiman views his critics as attackers who, motivated by hate, want to silence voices like his own, which promote unity and love.
It is clear — and understandable — that Suleiman feels it is unfair to focus on some tweets and Facebook posts he shared a few years ago while ignoring the work he is doing every day. It is also clear that he sincerely feels that his record does not warrant accusations of anti-Semitism.
But it is equally clear that he is unwilling to clarify if and how his “regretful” views have changed.
In May 2018, Suleiman took to Facebook to passionately endorse the Hamas-orchestrated riots at the Gaza border. The leader of Hamas had announced the goals of the riots very clearly when he vowed to “take down the border and tear out their hearts [i.e., the hearts of Israelis] from their bodies.”
Given Suleiman’s previous calls for a third intifada and his demonization of Israel, he will perhaps understand that it sounds somewhat sinister when he declared that Palestinians “will continue to demand their freedom. And so will we. By any means necessary.”
Suleiman consistently frames the Palestinian conflict with Israel in religious terms, painting it as one that should involve all Muslims, and adamantly denies the importance of the Land of Israel — as well as the centrality of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount — to Jews.
In his 2016 lecture on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Suleiman emphatically asserted that “Masjid [mosque] Al-Aqsa is that entire rectangle, that entire sanctuary, it is humongous, that is actually all Masjid Al-Aqsa; the Dome of the Rock is at the center of it, so that entire compound is Masjid Al-Aqsa,” erasing the fact that the same site is Judaism’s holiest, where historical and archeological evidence show that the Second Temple stood until its destruction in 70 CE. The Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque weren’t built until over 500 years later, on a plateau defined by the walls built to support the Temple complex.
Suleiman’s Al-Aqsa lecture is a depressing example of a fundamentalist theological outlook on the basis of an Islamist view of history. He says that it was “proven that other religions only flourished in Jerusalem under Muslim rule. It never happens any other way.” Complaining how unfair it was to fear that Muslims could “turn Jerusalem into some sort of blood bath,” Suleiman declared: “No, we recognize the sanctity of that place, we love that masjid, we love that land, we know what that land is. No one wants to do anything with that land except restore it to the way that it was.”
The implications of Suleiman’s religious teaching are clear: Muslims must strive to end Jewish sovereignty and “restore” Jerusalem and the Holy Land “to the way that it was” under Muslim rule.
It seems that Omar Suleiman’s theological views, which amount to a denial of Jewish history, color his political views. Like so many anti-Israel activists, Suleiman adamantly denies that anti-Zionism has anything to do with anti-Semitism. In the spirit of the interfaith activism he seems to endorse so warmly, he could perhaps consult some of the relevant material published by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, who explains that “Anti-Zionism, denying Jews the right to their one and only collective home by misrepresenting Judaism, is the new anti-Semitism, every bit as virulent and dangerous as the old.”
That would help Suleiman understand that you cannot erase Jewish history and credibly claim that you oppose anti-Semitism.
We cannot only denounce Jewish fundamentalists who dream of demolishing the Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount in order to build a third Temple as dangerous extremists. Muslim fundamentalists who preach that the Temple Mount has been Al-Aqsa from the beginning of time and claim that the entire site is a mosque are no better.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

Rabbi Nancy Kasten

By Rabbi Nancy Kasten

The Internet has made it much harder to perform meaningful teshuvah or to accept the teshuvah of others. Nonetheless, as Jews we are required to do both. I believe that Imam Omar Suleiman was sincere when he apologized in August of 2017 for statements he had “ever said, written or done” that harmed anyone who felt threatened by his words. I believe him not because of what he wrote and said then, or what he has written and said before and since, but because of the person he has always been, a person who daily performs acts of lovingkindness, and who embodies true commitment to human life and dignity. In February of 2017 Omar delivered a card signed by nearly 100 members of the Valley Ranch Islamic Center to the Dallas JCC, in the wake of a bomb threat, that said, “We are here for you.” In October of 2018 Omar sat in the front row at Congregation Shearith Israel at the memorial service for Jews gunned down in Pittsburgh. When he traveled to help bury the dead after the attack on Muslim worshippers in New Zealand in March, he sent some of his Jewish partners and friends this text message: “I’m holding you all in my heart in Christchurch. Every time I see one of our Jewish brothers and sisters here, I think about how blessed I am to have you all in my life. Thank you.” Many Jewish leaders in our community reach out to Omar when they want to talk to a widely respected Muslim leader, learned in his own tradition and in the complexities of working across lines of difference. Omar has offered his hand and heart to our Dallas Jewish community in solidarity, empathy and compassion time and time again, even when his overtures have been rebuffed out of fear or distrust.
I have sat with Omar in restaurants and in my living room, sharing stories and asking questions about past experience and hopes for the future; struggling to understand and accept each other’s narratives. In my experience, Omar tries repeatedly to understand and respect the narratives of others while refusing to negate his own. That is a quality we can all strive to emulate. Omar and I share a conviction that our communities have more that unites us than divides us, a concern that the futures of both the Jewish and the Muslim communities in this country are under threat, and a commitment to building trust between us so that we can effectively work together. We also share a sad suspicion that social media outlets are being manipulated to engender fear and distrust among would-be allies in the fight against racism, xenophobia, jingoism and white nationalism. Jewish and other social media outlets that choose to saturate their networks with “anti-Semitic” tropes by progressive Muslims and “pro-Israel” tropes by conservative evangelical Christians are sadly succeeding in dividing the Jewish community from our allies, making it harder for us to build the power necessary to combat discrimination and violence.
In the Mishneh Torah in the Laws of Repentance, Maimonides states the following:
“You must not show yourself cruel by not accepting an apology; you should be easily pacified, and provoked with difficulty. When an offender asks forgiveness, you should forgive wholeheartedly and with a willing spirit. Even if the offender has caused you much trouble wrongfully, you must not avenge yourself, you must not bear a grudge. This is the way of the stock of Israel and their upright hearts. “
I hope that our local Dallas community will not be afraid to share our lived experience of Imam Omar Suleiman with others who may not have had the privilege of personally interacting with this humble, patient and wise young faith leader, a person whom our Jewish community rightfully calls a friend. Let’s not let the Internet prevent us from doing what the stock of Israel is required to do: performing our own teshuvah and accepting the teshuvah of others.
Rabbi Nancy Kasten was recently named Chief Relationship Officer of Faith Commons, an organization working to strengthen faith communities and communities through faith.