20 | OCTOBER 17 • 2019
In the German city of Halle,
Yom Kippur services were
suddenly interrupted by shots
being fired near a synagogue,
killing two people.
AP News reported an attack-
er tried to enter the synagogue
but was repelled by the syna-
gogue’
s doors that were secured
shut. The assailant was said to
have fired shots and thrown
grenades at the synagogue.
Fifty-one worshipers, includ-
ing 10 American youths, were
in the synagogue at the time of
the attack. The gunman shot a
woman dead at a nearby Jewish
cemetery, threw a grenade at a
kebab shop, and then fired at it,
killing a man.
Later, residents were given
the all clear, and reports said
that there was only one gun-
man.
CNN quoted a German
security official as saying that
the ideology driving the attack
was from the far right.
SITE, a private intelligence
group based in the U.S., said on
Twitter that the shooters had
posted video on a gaming site
and that one of them had said,
in English, that the “root of all
problems are Jews.”
The suspect was identified
by the German press late
Wednesday night, Oct. 9, as
Stephan Balliet, a 27-year-old
German from the nearby state
of Saxony-Anhalt, according to
the Telegraph.
Security was increased at
synagogues around Germany
in the wake of the attack.
Identities of the victims have
not yet been revealed.
Members of the European
Parliament held a moment of
silence for the victims.
2 Killed in Shooting Near
German Synagogue
W
hen Temple Jacob
in Hancock, Mich.,
was vandalized
with swastikas and SS logos
in September, the community
rallied together to clean the
graffiti.
Support continues to pour
in for Temple Jacob. Just before
Rosh Hashanah, President
David Holden and the syna-
gogue board initiated a com-
munity-focused response to
share the positive outcomes that
resulted from the Nazi graffiti.
Holden consulted with Pastor
Bucky Beach of Good Shepherd
Lutheran Church and Debbie
Massarano, Temple Jacob’
s
service leader for the High
Holidays. Together, the group
decided to host two events:
a community discussion and
a community-wide Kabbalat
Shabbat service on Friday, Oct.
4.
The first community discus-
sion was held Wednesday, Oct.
2, at Good Shepherd, where
roughly 25 members from
different churches, Temple
Jacob, Hancock City Council,
plus several faculty members
from Michigan Technological
University and teachers from
area schools were in attendance.
Participants discussed other
ways that hate, intolerance and
bigotry could show up in their
community. They also formu-
lated different strategies on how
to address these broader issues.
The result of this community
meeting was to continue to
grow the visibility of Keweenaw
Faiths United, an interfaith
group started recently to pro-
vide support for inclusiveness
and diversity.
“The discussion also focused
on strategic thinking on whom
we should approach to have
maximum impact — specific
influential religious groups, our
target groups for education and
modeling,
” Holden said. “We
also focused on what sort of
messaging is appropriate for the
Keweenaw Faiths United that all
can get behind.
”
Temple Jacob continues to
enhance security and has seen
service attendance for the High
Holidays nearly double, with
many people making trips in
from far outside the Houghton-
Hancock area.
In response to heightened
security, the Jewish Federation
of Metropolitan Detroit worked
with Michigan Technological
University’
s Public Safety
Department and the Hancock
Police Department to assist
Temple Jacob in finding a
capable security detail for their
congregants.
Since Temple Jacob is almost
100 miles away from a large
city, private security firms don’
t
exist in the area. Holden said he
appreciated the work that Gary
Sikorski, Federation’
s director
of community-wide security,
and his team did to help con-
gregants feel at ease during
services.
“The vandalism has served
only to pump more life into
these groups of committed
folks,” Holden said. “It has
awakened some of us to the
fact that these are daily prob-
lems that exist at many levels
of our community — in ways
that are invisible to lots of us
— and need to be addressed
with the same firm resolution
that this is not who we are as a
community.”
Jews in the D
Detroit federartion provided security
assistance for the High Holidays.
Detroit federartion provided security
Temple Jacob Continues to
Unite the Community
CORRIE COLF STAFF WRITER
PHOTOS COURTESY OF DAVID HOLDEN
JN STAFF