Netanyahu offers to help Chabad synagogue after deadly shooting attack

Israel’s ambassador to the U.N. condemned anti-Semitic cartoons that “turn into shootings” after controversial New York Times caricature. 

By World Israel News Staff 

Israeli leaders have been expressing their sympathies and support for the Jewish community in the San Diego area following the shooting attack Saturday at the Poway Chabad synagogue in which one person was murdered and three others wounded.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed Israeli consul in Los Angeles Avner Saban to provide any assistance possible to the synagogue and to continue to update him on the developments, according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.

President Reuven Rivlin said that “we were shocked and grieved to hear of the shooting.”

In a statement issued by the Presidential Residence, Rivlin added that “the murderous attack on the Jewish community during Pesach, our holiday of freedom, and just before Holocaust Memorial Day, is yet another painful reminder that anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews are still with us, everywhere. No country and no society are immune. Only through education for Holocaust remembrance and tolerance can we deal with this plague,” said the president, who also expressed condolences to the family of the woman who was murdered.

“Our hearts are with the Gilbert-Kaye family, who have lost their dear Lori, with the families of the injured, and with the whole community. We are with you in these difficult times. We love and embrace you. The Jewish people will never allow anti-Semitism and hatred to triumph,” said Rivlin.

Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett praised Gilbert-Kaye as “a hero in Jewish history” for sacrificing “her own life, throwing herself in the path of the murderer’s bullets to save the life of the rabbi” of the synagogue.

“But it is clear that such heroism and good deeds are not only characteristic of dear Lori in death, but this is the way she lived her life – at the heart of her community, constantly doing charity and good deeds for those in need,” said Bennett.

‘Time for action’

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon charged that “the words, the demonstrators, and the cartoons turn into shootings against worshipers in synagogues.” Danon’s reference to cartoons seemed to be a reaction to a caricature published in the New York Times on Thursday portraying Prime Minister Netanyahu as a dog, with the Jewish star of David symbol dangling from his collar. Netanyahu’s leash is held by U.S. President Donald Trump, who is depicted as a blind man wearing a skullcap.

“Anti-Semitism continues to raise its head and take victims,” said Ambassador Danon. “This is the time for action, for a determined war and not for weak and hollow condemnations that allow the forces of hate to revive dark periods in history.”