Late last Thursday night, Aviv Broek, a dual citizen of Israel and the United Kingdom, was shot dead in South Memphis, Tennessee. Broek, 21, had arrived in the U.S. two months earlier.
Fox 13 Memphis reported that his killer remains at large.
Broek, a locksmith, received a call late at night from someone posing as a customer who claimed to have been locked out of their car. According to a Monday morning statement from his family (posted on X by journalist Jake Novak), “he was called to an empty building on a street with no surveillance cameras,” where he was brutally murdered. The Memphis police informed Broek’s family that his British passport had been recovered, but his Israeli passport and cell phone were missing. Other than that, they have received “very little information” from the Memphis police, and they “are concerned.”
The Jewish Chronicle reported on Tuesday that “according to unverified social media posts, Broek … was reportedly offered double payment to travel late at night. … On exiting his vehicle, he was shot and robbed, and after two and a half hours, his Israeli roommate managed to track him and found his body at the scene.”
The motive for Broek’s murder is unknown, but his family suspects he was killed because he was a Jew. Given that he was lured to his death in an abandoned building late at night under false pretenses, they believe this was a hate crime. They wrote:
We are foreigners, Jews in a foreign land & we need answers & require assistance to demand justice for our son. We believe there must be an immediate hate crimes investigation. We are aware of the reality that in 2024, Jews are being hunted worldwide. The enemies of the Jewish people have called to ’globalize the Intifada’ and we are concerned that this may be the case in Memphis.We request that the FBI investigate this as a hate crime. We request that every decent American, Jew and non-Jew, stand with the Jewish & Israeli community in ensuring a full civil-rights investigation now. Today we demand answers.
On Tuesday morning, the family issued a new statement demanding justice.
It’s been 5 days and we barely have any information from the police.In Memphis there are daily calls to globalize the intifada and harm Zionists; clear calls for violence which must attract a civil rights investigation. Has anti Semitism seeped so deep into American culture that the murder of a Jewish Israeli-British 21 year old is acceptable? Why is it that in the UAE, a murderer was caught immediately but in America it’s accepted that Jews get killed?”
Novak noted that friends are disappointed that “the Memphis Jewish Federation and local ADL have yet to even issue a statement. Nor has the family heard from the British embassy.” He added, “There have also now been discussions among local city councils about whether to warn Jews against visiting Tennessee.”
Local media outlet WREG-Memphis reached out to the Memphis Police Department for a comment on Broek’s murder. A spokesperson said, “This is an active investigation and there is no indication at this time of a hate crime. However, MPD is pursuing all leads.”
WREG also reached out to Betar USA, the North American affiliate of Betar, a Zionist group that speaks out for Jews around the world. The activist group is currently working with the Broek family to urge the FBI to open an investigation into Aviv’s death as a hate crime.
Ross Glick, the executive director of this organization, told WREG, “In this particular case, what’s happening now, we’re helping Jews out in America and throughout the world dealing with antisemitism that’s been permeating all throughout society.” He said, “In this particular case, we’re asking the FBI to step in. We’re not feeling confident about how this is being addressed by the local PD.”
As I see it, there are three possible reasons for the MPD’s reluctance to investigate Broek’s death as a hate crime – or to even investigate it at all. First, while the circumstances of his murder look very suspicious, it’s certainly possible it was “just a crime.”
Second, the officers making the call may harbor antisemitic bias.
Or third, the department may simply not have enough available resources to devote to a thorough investigation at the moment. Memphis is the world’s 10th most dangerous city. Amazing but true. In July, WREG reported that “Memphis was the only city in the U.S. to make the top ten of Numbeo’s Crime Index by City 2024 Mid-Year.”
Moreover, the Anti-Defamation League recently reported that “antisemitic incidents in the U.S. in the year since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel,” topped 10,000, triple the number from the same period in the prior year.
Whatever the circumstances of his death, this family deserves justice and respect. While Broek’s murder may turn out to be “just a crime,” his loved ones need some answers from the MPD rather than the radio silence they are currently receiving.
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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