Funerals have been held for the two Jewish victims who were among the four killed in a shooting spree on Tuesday in Jersey City.
Both Ultra-Orthodox services were held on Wednesday evening, in keeping with Jewish custom to conduct burial services as soon as possible after death.
The funeral for Moshe Hersh Deutsch, 24, was held at 8.00pm at the Satmar Bais Medrash on Rodney Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The funeral for Leah Mindel Ferencz, 33, was held at 8.00pm at 127 Martin Luther King Boulevard in Jersey City — mere blocks from where the attack on a kosher market and hours-long police standoff took place on Tuesday.
Also killed in the attack were police Detective Joseph Seals, 39, and Douglas Miguel Rodriguez, 49. A visitation for Seals is scheduled for 2pm Monday at McLaughlin Funeral Home in Jersey City, and his funeral service is set for 10pm on Tuesday at St. Aedan’s Church. Services for Rodriguez, a native of Ecuador, have not yet been scheduled.
The funeral (left) for Moshe Hersh Deutsch, 24, (right) was held at 8.00pm in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
The casket of Moshe Deutch is carried as thousands of Orthodox Jewish men crowded Rodney Street in Williamsburg
Thousands of Orthodox Jewish men crowded Rodney Street in Williamsburg for the funeral of Moshe Deutsch
Moshe Deutsch was one of the victims of the fatal shooting in Jersey City, and thousands attended his funeral
Thousands of Orthodox Jewish men crowded Rodney Street in Williamsburg for the funeral of Moshe Deutsch
Deutsch grew up in the heavily Orthodox Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, where he was the son of a Jewish activist.
Ferencz, a mother of three children ages 11, 7, and 4, was also from Williamsburg and was married to the owner of the JC Kosher Supermarket where the attack unfolded on Tuesday afternoon.
Mier Ferencz, brother-in-law of Mindel Ferencz, said the couple had moved to Jersey City about three years ago to be part of the small Orthodox Jewish community putting down roots there.
‘It’s really building the ground stones of a future,’ Mier Ferencz said. ‘I can’t see why would someone disturb a decent family.’ He called his sister-in-law ‘dedicated, a real mother and a real wife.’
Rabbi David Niederman, the executive director of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, a large community service organization in the Satmar community in Brooklyn´s Williamsburg community, said the Ferencz family were among the first of about 75 to 100 Hasidic families from Williamsburg to move to Jersey City over the last few years.
‘Mindel Ferencz, may she rest in peace, was a pioneer,’ said Niederman, who joined New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio at a City Hall news conference Wednesday. ‘She and her husband were from the first people who moved to Jersey City who could not afford a home for their growing family and figured let´s go to places where it´s cheaper and I´ll make an example. I´ll go there. I´ll open a grocery store so that families can go and shop locally, and therefore growing the community.’
The funeral (left) for Leah Mindel Ferencz, 33, (right) was held at 8.00pm at 127 Martin Luther King Boulevard in Jersey City — mere blocks from where the attack on a kosher market and hours-long police standoff took place on Tuesday
Orthodox Jewish men carry the casket with Mindel Ferencz outside a Brooklyn synagogue Wednesday in New York. Her funeral was held later in Jersey City, not far from the site of the attack
In Jersey City, Frenecz’s casket was greeted by hundreds of Orthodox Jewish men. Ferencz was killed in a kosher market that was the site of a gun battle in Jersey City on Tuesday
Members of the Orthodox Jewish community in Jersey City attend the funeral service of Mindel Ferencz. Ferencz, 31, and her husband owned the grocery store where the attack took place
Family members of Mindel Ferencz, who was killed at a kosher market that was the site of a gun battle, attend her funeral service in Jersey City. The Ferencz family had moved to Jersey City from Brooklyn
Orthodox Jewish men mourn during the funeral service of Mindel Ferencz in Jersey City on Wednesday
Niederman said he was up all night worrying about the couple’s children.
‘How long are these children going to live with their scars that are going to stay with them the rest of their lives,’ he said. ‘She was a lady full of love for others and unfortunately her life was cut so short.’
The shooters in the attack, David Anderson, 47, and Francine Graham, 50, were killed by police after an hours-long standoff.
Police sources say Anderson was once a Black Hebrew Israelite, a group that believes black people are the true descendants of ancient Israelites, and which often expresses extreme racial animosity toward Jewish and white people.
Online posts tied to the Anderson include the statement ‘Blacks are jews, the ‘jewish’ are impostors’, and a note left in the van used in the attack had words to the effect of ‘I do this because my creator makes me do this, and I hate who he hates,’ according to WNBC-TV.
Shooter David Anderson, 47, and his lover Francine Graham, 50, were killed by police after an hours-long standoff
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, center, leaves after visiting a religious school on Wednesday, the day after a shooting that left multiple dead at a kosher market adjacent to the school
Murphy is seen after visiting a religious school the day after a shooting that left multiple dead at a kosher market next door
The New Jersey Attorney General and other officials were hesitant to label the attack a hate crime, but Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop said on Wednesday it was ‘impossible’ to draw any other conclusion and that the community had to ‘aggressively’ call out anti-Semitism.
He also said that Graham and Anderson were ‘familiar’ with the community having both lived in it, and that they knew exactly where to target Jews.
‘I am Jewish. I am the grandson of a holocaust survivor. We need to be aggressive in calling it out for what it is.
‘I know people should say we should reviews things and take our time, but when you look at the facts it’s difficult to say anything other than this was an attack on the Jewish community,’ the mayor said.