JERSEY CITY-Mayor Steven Fulop, of Jersey City today said he feels the intended target of this week’s attacks against the Orthodox Jewish community was not the kosher supermarket, but an adjacent yeshiva full of children that is attached to the store.
“My opinion is that as more info comes out it’ll become increasingly clear that the target was the 50 children at the Yeshiva attached to that store,” Mayor Fulop said today. “We will never know 100% but the doorway to the yeshiva was 3 feet away + it seems he goes in that direction 1st.”
Fulop has condemned the attack in his city as a hate crime driven by anti-Semitism and recounted his own family’s history of survivors of the holocaust.
“I come from a family of holocaust survivors where 35 members of my immediate family were taken to Auschwitz and only 7 survived,” Fulop said. “The rest were put in the gas chamber. My family immigrated here because of what this country was about – tolerance, acceptance + opportunity. That’s why I feel so strongly about calling out hate.”
“I think as more info comes out it will be more and more clear not only that this was a hate crime but that the perpetrators had hoped to kill many more people than 4,” he added.
