German Synagogue Shooter Thwarted By Recently Upgraded Security Door
Bullet holes on the door of the synagogue in Haale. Image by Getty Images
By PJ Grisar October 10, 2019
On Yom Kippur, 51 congregants in a Halle synagogue watched the feed from security cameras as their would-be shooter tried to break down the door.
He pushed it, fired a few rounds with his gun and even attached an explosive to the jamb. The heavy wooden door wouldn’t budge, CNN reported..
The door and the security system were funded in part by a grant from the Jewish Agency for Israel, a major Jewish nonprofit, Max Privorovsky, a leader of Halle’s Jewish community told The New York Times.
The shooting came at a time of increased anti-Semitic and far-right activity in Europe. Earlier this year, German officials, heeding a rise in attacks on Jews, urged citizens not to wear kippot in public. During the first half of 2019, German authorities registered 8,605 hate crimes, 900 more than the first half of the previous year.
In other German cities like Berlin and Munich, armed guards are a fact of life for congregants. On Sunday in Berlin, a guard stopped an assailant from entering the city’s Neue synagogue. Halle’s synagogue did not have a guard at the door. No one inside the temple was shot. The gunman killed two: a pedestrian outside the synagogue and a diner at a nearby kebab shop.
“It was a miracle that the door held,” Privorozki told The Times. “I cannot imagine what would have happened if it had not.”
Anti-Semitic hate crimes in Germany rose in incidence by almost 20% in 2018. In the U.S., anti-Semitic crimes recently rose to the highest level in two decades, culminating in shootings in synagogue shootings in Poway, CA and Pittsburgh, PA. This year’s high holidays in America saw many synagogues taking new precautions, including using single entrances, denying entry to those without tickets, paying for private security and allowing licensed congregants to come armed.
PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture fellow. He can be reached at [email protected].
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
