20 Responses

1. I’m not sure whether this is a story of interest to YWN readership. As a Reform/Reconstructionist synagogue, it is unlikely that a majority of its members are Jewish, so the president was probably not Jewish either. And there’s no indication that the murder had anything to do with antisemitism. So why would we be more interested in this story than in those of the thousands of other crimes committed in Detroit every year?

2. Detroit…..
   Trashida’s stomping ground……

3. I don’t understand why the Detroit police need to investigate for a possible motive? The president of a shul is assassinated in a city with the largest Arab/Palestinian population in the country and they think this could have been a coincidence? Give me a break.

4. Reform gay building of communion is NOT a synagogue. Please change the title of the article

5. To all the negative commenters: it’s likely that none of you has 100% proof as to whether the victim, or the members of synagogue are “not Jewish” as you declare. Now is NOT the time to be sowing additional seeds of sin’ah against possibly fellow Jews. Don’t you think the rest of the world is doing a good enough job? And don’t you think HKBH wants us all to start getting along with each other better? We need geulah and yeshua now, big time! But we might not get it if we don’t deserve it. Your comments are hurting our chances not helping.
   YWN moderators- why do you continue to allow people to post comments that just increase the disunity in klal yisrael? We need to stop sin’as chinam, not encourage it 😢

6. Two weeks ago, the Hamas butchers were really careful to distinguish between yidden who were shomrei torah umtizvos and those whose credentials were suspect. The sheer stupidity at this time of dismissing the murder of a Jew (yes, her mother was Jewish) because he/she is not frum is a bit disgusting.

7. Milhouse and Frumshmurda718 – Who are you to determine who is Jewish and what is a synagogue. At this point in world events. We MUST stand b’achdus, even with those who are less religious then us. When Mashiach does come, may it be soon, it will not matter whether someone is Orthodox, conservative, or reform – to Hashem, and terrorist’s, there are no labels, you’re either Jewish or not. With all that is going on, such comments need to be left private.

8. GHD, that almost certainly IS a coincidence. There is no reason in the world to suppose that there is any connection at all between the murder and her happening to be the president of a religious organization.

   FShm, it is not a shul, but “synagogue” is the correct term for that religion’s assembly places. I believe it is also the correct term for the worship-houses of the branch of Xianity known as “Messianic Judaism” (which by the way has more in common with actual Judaism than does the Reform religion). Each religion has the right to decide what its worship-places and clergy-persons should be called.

9. Oh, and she was not “assassinated”. She was murdered. Even if by some weird off chance the murder did have something to do with her presidency of the synagogue, that still doesn’t count as “assasination”. Not even if it was by a synagogue member upset about how she was running the place.

10. a human being is dead…..thanks for sharing that this makes this person lesser…..goes to show that the enemy doesn’t care neither did Hitler

11. hy”d. please do not trash fellow jews at a time like this.

12. > Milhouse

    I have no idea whether or not she is Jewish. But the point is that she was “high profile” in Detroit and the media identify her as a representative of Jews. And she was politically connected as a representative of Jews. And there is no shortage of speculation that she was murdered because the perpetrator thought she was Jewish (and the perpetrator may even have been motivated by Rashida Tlaib’s anti-Semiiic canards).

13. far too many ugly incidents coming from America…..as a non American…..it would be nice if Israel and real Israelis worked this out and left the ugly American thread of nonsense and aggression elsewhere…..it is definitely the one group I remain to work on not being part of …..imagine that there must be a reason___Bless the Chareidim…

14. “Two weeks ago, the Hamas butchers were really careful to distinguish between yidden who were shomrei torah umtizvos and those whose credentials were suspect.”

    Gadolhadorah
    So your role models are Hitler and hamas?
    We should learn from them not to differentiate between frum and frei?
    Sounds weird.

15. To Zechaya and Achdus2019 and Shloime-Baruch and Achdus2019,
    Thank you for your beautiful comments.
    May Hashem bentsch your families with lots of good health.

16. Last week we heard a lot of leaders cry out and condemn the murder of a muslim boy in Illinois, let’s see If we will hear from them on this incident

17. @achdus2019

    I suppose you believe that now is the time to kiss all enemies of ours that are not Muslim in the common fight against Muslim extremism??
    We are not gentiles/politicals that are ready to side with ne enemy in a fight against a common enemy.
    Reformers, l***** and all other kinds are enemies of ours just as much if not more than these vile animals- hamas. גדטל המחטיאו יותר מן ההרגו

18. Fanatic: My point was simple regarding the perverted posts that seem to dismiss the murder/assassination/etc (all equally dead) because the woman may not be frum (although she is Jewish). Whether Hamas, Hezbolah, the Nazis or whatever hate group we are talking about, they don’t care if someone who they think may be a “jew” is frum, frei, gay, ger’ c’halacha etc. —we know they will kill in an instant. I’m definitely jumping to a conclusion, but I can’t readily accept that this was just a coincidence.

19. “Achdus”, I don’t have to be 100% sure she wasn’t Jewish. It’s enough that she’s more likely to have been a gentile than a Jew. Anyone at all might be Jewish, but we don’t go around assuming that every person we see on the street is Jewish just because they might be.

    The question is what makes you assume she was Jewish? The mere fact that she was the president of a Reform/Reconstructionist synagogue is no indication of being Jewish. Yes, a large minority of people who attend such places are Jews, but in many US cities the same is true for Buddhist temples; should we assume that any random Buddhist is a Jew?!

    GHD, what makes you imagine that her mother was Jewish? Do you know her mother?! Neither of us have any idea who her mother might be, and that is my point.

    As for whom Hamas killed, they killed Thais and Arabs too. Should we consider them Jewish?! But at least Hamas were targeting Jews, and they were collateral damage. The point here is that there is literally NO reason to suppose that the murderer, whoever it is, thought she was Jewish, let alone that he or she was motivated by that thought. There’s a murder every day in Detroit and we have no reason to suppose this was any different than the other ones. It may have been a robbery, it may have been an ex-boy- or -girlfriend, it may have been all sorts of things.

20. Fanatic, it’s not about frum and frei. A frei Jew is still a Jew and we are commanded to love him. Even a goy who is killed because the killer thought he was a Jew should concern us, because the next target is likely to be a Jew. The point here is that there’s no reason to suppose she was a Jew, or that the murderer is an antisemite.