Germany: At Least 2 Killed in Shooting Outside Synagogue on Yom Kippur
Attackers in “military-style combat uniform” tired to “blow open the gates of the synagogue.”
At least two people have been reported killed after armed attackers tried to storm a synagogue in the central German city of Halle. “Multiple” attackers tried to “blow open the gates of the synagogue,” German newspaper Bild reported.
Police have apprehended one attacker and identified as a German national, public broadcaster ARD confirmed.
The shooting took place around noon local time when 80-100 worshippers filled the synagogue to mark Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
“The attackers tried to force their way into the synagogue,” and once that failed “they shot at [a] passerby,” Die Welt newspaper reported.
The police and local media have yet to comment on the motive behind the attack.
German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle covered the synagogue shooting:
Police in Halle confirm that shots were fired in the eastern German city. They warn locals to stay indoors, saying multiple possible suspects fled in a car. One eyewitness told regional public broadcaster MDR that one of the suspects was wearing a military-style combat uniform and was armed with “multiple weapons.”
Two people are confirmed dead by authorities, though no further details of their indentities have been given. Officers say they have detained one suspect. The main train station in Halle, located outside the city of Leipzig, was also closed as police continue to search for the suspects.
Police and Jewish community leaders confirm that the shooting happened in the Paulusviertel district, near a synagogue. While no connection could be declared with certainty, the attack took place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in Judaism.
Max Privorotzki, head of Halle Jewish Community, tells the German press that the building was “fully occupied” at the time of the shooting because of Yom Kippur. He said that a suspect had tried to enter the building. “A heavily armed attacker with a helmet and rifle tried to shoot at our doors,” Privorotzki added.
German authorities have launched a major operation to catch the attackers. The local police backed by special forces are “checking train stations and airports in central Germany as well as traffic moving towards Poland and Czech Republic,” the regional broadcaster MDR confirmed.
A separate shootout was also reported in the nearby town of Landsberg. The initial media reports could not confirm if the two incidents are related.
The deadly shooting comes just days after an averted knife attack at a Berlin synagogue. The knife-wielding attacker climbed the security barrier outside the synagogue shouting “Allahu akbar” and “F*** Israel.” The Berlin police disarmed the attacker with pepper spray and allowed him to walk free soon after. The assailant was identified as a 23-year-old Syrian asylum seeker.
There has been a steep rise in antisemitic violence in Germany. Berlin, the country’s capital, registered a 155 percent spike in violent attacks on Jews in 2018, as compared to 2017. Verbal and physical attacks against Jewish men wearing Kippah, the traditional skullcap, or Jewish women wearing Star of David are so commonplace that nearly 70 percent of German Jews prefer not to wear religious symbols in public, community leaders say.
[UPDATE: One of the attackers has been identified as the 27-years-old neo-Nazi Stephan Balliet. He live-streamed the attack on the internet, Bild newspaper reported]
Video: Man dressed in tactical gear shooting outside the synagogue in Halle
[Cover image via YouTube]
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Comments
“The police and local media have yet to comment on the motive behind the attack.”
We already know the motive.
Now we’re just waiting on the spin
Yes, we do know the motive. Good old-fashioned European right-wing antisemitism. That is what you had in mind, isn’t it? Because if you were thinking Islam then you’ve got some crow to eat.
See further down. My comment is more a criticism of media coverage as it usually unfolds
The media jump to conclusions; this time they happened to guess right, but they deserve no credit for that. But some people here should take this as a lesson not to jump to the opposite conclusion, however more likely it seems.
red, i don’t disagree with your comment. i would urge some caution however. it’s not impossible to envision another person/group using islam as a cover. you would only need to yell those magic words. it’s like a stay out of jail card if you’re caught.
the motive is antisemitism.
the philosophical justification for it is of lesser importance.
besides, the moose-slimes loved Hitler.
Whether they shouted “Heil Hitler” or ‘Aloha Snackbar” is immaterial. They hate Jews. That’s their motive. This is not a random attack
Any phrase shouted would determine which direction the media and govt spin goes. One phrase would be condemned, the other glossed over
another strict gun control success story.
Admitting millions of goose-stepping, Jew-hating Muslims into Germany and then undertaking ad hoc, “whack-a-mole” security operations in a predictably futile attempt to contain and prevent their inevitable violent outbursts really does represent the height of delusion and stupidity.
If it’s not the Muslims, it’s the leftists. They have become rabidly anti-Semitic and try to cloak their hatred of Jews by saying it’s really just disagreement with Israel. It’s not and it’s really insulting that they think we’re so stupid we can’t recognize antisemitism when we see it.
And, I stand by my comment, even if the assailant in this incident was a white German national, because, this attack is an aberration from the undeniable trend of increasing and pervasive Muslim belligerence, violence and Jew/Christian-hatred in Europe.
Aberration from an increasing trend of Muslim belligerence implies a lessening of Muslim animus toward Jews and Christians in Europe ? I guess you’ve succeeded in creating confusion.
What did you mean to do, Guy?
Aberration from an increasing trend of Muslim belligerence implies a lessening of Muslim animus toward Jews and Christians in Europe ? I guess you’ve succeeded in creating confusion.
What did you mean to convey, Guy?
Huh? Your comment makes no sense.
“Identified as the 27-years-old neo-Nazi ”
Good grief. Thank goodness the idiots were defeated by a sturdy gate. Stephan Balliet, now a failed version of Anders Breivik.
Wikipedia editors scrubbed Breivik’s profile to make him appear as if he’s not a cookie cutter left wing nationalist-socialist European.
Take away the armed security of politicians and lets see how long the banning of guns lasts over there.
There’s something very strange about this story. He set out to kill a bunch of Jews, but when he couldn’t he didn’t want his effort to go to waste so he killed a random person who just happened to be walking on the street outside the synagogue, and then drove to a completely different location, which had nothing to do with Jews, and killed another person. How does that makes sense?
We have his own words to verify his antisemitic motive, but it seems his main motive was really just to kill people for the sake of sheer homicidal glee, and while Jews were his first choice of victim, when they proved unavailable anyone else would do.
Any infidel will do.
Remember the Pulse Night Club shooting in Orlando?
Media spun it as a bigotted anti-gay mass killing.
But, it was just another Muslim Terror Attack.
The killer originally scoped out Disney World. That was his preferred target. Problem was, they had pretty good security and that scared him off.
So, instead, he chose to kill people in a place he happened to know – the night club.
Any infidel will do.
His goal was to follow the commands of his faith and kill infidels. The fact that they happened to be homosexuals was incidental.
Except that this guy is not a Moslem, he’s an old-fashioned German antisemite like they used to make, upset about feminism and immigration, and blaming the Jews for both.
Jumping to conclusions about a perpetrator’s motives before the facts are in is a mistake no matter who makes it. Those who assumed the Pulse shooting was motivated by homophobia turned out to be wrong; and those who assumed this incident was motivated by jihad turned out to be just as wrong. The lesson is to wait for facts.
There was an arson at a synagogue in Brooklyn on Yom Kippur. People are jumping to the conclusion that it must be a hate crime. That could be so, but it seems to me more likely to have been a crazy homeless person from the shelter next door, who had no idea what day it was, or what kind of building it was.
“then drove to a completely different location, which had nothing to do with Jews, and killed another person. How does that makes sense? ”
A kebab shop or something like that, right?
That makes perfect sense for a Nazi, who classifies all other racial and ethnic groups on a scale of varying degrees of inferiority and need to be exterminated.
The blessings of “diversity”.
Islam is the greatest evil the world has ever known.
Even if it is, it’s got nothing to do with the topic.
he picked a synagogue–that pretty well establishes his motive–either he hates jews or wanted a soft target or perhaps both
he’s pretty casual about it–possibly in a fugue or drugged-up
thank god we’re in the US–this guy stood around in the open for quite a while–would like to believe that he’d have been dropped rather quickly by one or more of our armed citizens
The choice of a synagogue as a target doesn’t prove his motive; see my comment earlier about a Yom Kippur synagogue arson in Brooklyn that has people looking for neonazis or klansmen under the bed (our communist mayor still insists, against all the evidence, that the NYC’s hate crime problem is coming from the “right”), but I suspect that if the arsonist is ever found they will prove not to have even known what sort of building it was let alone what day it was.
But his own words do prove his motive, in spades. He blames feminism for immigration, and the Jews for both. I think it likely that if he votes it’s for AfD. (Which is not their fault, of course.)
By the way, the synagogue in question is very “progressive”; I have little doubt that close to 100% of its membership voted for our communist mayor, and I imagine a solid majority supports having the homeless shelter right next door because it’s the “tikkun olam” thing to do. (“Tikkun olam” is a perversion of Judaism, replacing all genuine Jewish values with the gospel of “social justice”.)
Strange confrontation. If you have been to Europe, and walked by and Jewish religious structure, there are usually two machine guns covering the entrance.
He tried to break in through a side door.
Why the hell is he firing black-powder shot shells?
Synagogues in Germany seem to be hardened targets. Good idea in every country.