Editorial: No one should be targeted for their religion
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April 29, 2019
The Chabad of Poway in Poway, California joined a growing list of places of worship that have become the target of a hate crime Saturday.
A gunman, armed with a semiautomatic rifle, burst into the sacred temple on the last day of Passover, shouting anti-semitic slurs. He then began to open fire on the synagogue.
This attack left one dead and three wounded. Eight-year-old Noya Dahan was one of the wounded from this tragic incident, along with the Rabbi and one other member of the synagogue.
“He was aiming right at us. He was aiming at the kids,” Dahan said to CNN.
His attack on this temple left a 60-year-old woman dead, and injured the 57-year-old Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, Noya Dahan and a 34-year-old man.
“The rabbi held up his hands as he faced the gunman. At least one of his fingers was blown off as bullets smashed into both hands,” CNN reported.
Yet, even with all the horror that has happened to Poway, Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein has called for unity amongst the people of his church.
The synagogue attack occurred just six months after the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh in October. That was the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history, leaving 11 people dead.
This is one of many religious attacks that have happened in the last year. For instance, the bombings in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday that killed 290 people and injured 500 others. It is believed that an Islamist group coordinated roughly 10 suicide bombings around the city, all of which were detonated at different times of the day.
“Officials have also contradicted themselves on possible ties to the Islamic State group and the motive for the attack, the worst violence in Sri Lanka since its brutal civil war ended a decade ago,” Fox News reported.
These hate crimes are completely uncalled for. Just because individuals of a community choose to practice a certain religion or live a certain lifestyle does not in any way mean they deserve any kind of negative repercussions, whether that is someone calling them names on the street or being targeted and gunned down.
Whether you practice religion as a Catholic, Jewish, Christian or don’t practice anything at all, there is absolutely no reason you should be punished or judged on your decision.
