Teens hurl pole through synagogue window as Jews are praying

[MosheFeingold]

New York Post (Metro)

By Tina Moore, Cedar Attanasio and Kevin Sheehan

November 4, 2018 | 5:30pm

https://nypost.com/2018/11/04/teens-hurl-pole-through-synagogue-window-as-jews-are-praying/

(Security video of attack at link)


A group of teens launched a metal pole through a glass window of a Brooklyn synagogue as members of the congregation observed the Sabbath on Saturday evening, authorities said. “People were praying inside at the time,” a man who was at the temple on Franklin Avenue near Myrtle Avenue in Williamsburg said on Sunday. “Everyone is upset already. So, this we don’t need this now.” The man, who did not give his name, lives in the largely Hasidic apartment complex above the first-floor synagogue, where one of the lower-floor windows was shattered by the pole.

Police are looking for four boys around the age of 16 after a witness reported the attack at about 5:45 p.m. Saturday. The youths ran south on Franklin Avenue after smashing the window, police said. Officials estimated that the property damage exceeded $250. Congregants on Sunday covered up the gaping hole in the synagogue window with a piece of black plastic.

It’s the latest in a spate of anti-Semitic attacks in New York City. Police on Saturday also released footage of a vandal who scrawled swastikas on a Brooklyn Heights wall. James Polite, 26, was also busted Friday for allegedly writing “Kill All Jews” in the stairwell of historic Union Temple in Prospect Heights. No one was injured in any of the attacks.

[redwitch]

1. Just awful.

I feel horrible about what is happening in this country. Does anyone ever feel safe anywhere anymore? AntiSemitism has never made any sense to me. And who raises children to be so mean and violent?

[MosheFeingold]

2. "And who raises children to be so mean and violent?"

Looking at the video, it appears to be just stupid kids without someone to raise them right.

Not to sound like a RWer, but the two-parent household is 10,000+ year old tradition for a reason, and should be encouraged, when practical.

[dawg day]

4. Many single-parent kids do just fine-

Many two-parent households have one abusive and controlling parent. That's really a lot worse, as the example set by the "angry patriarch" leads to violent and destructive behavior. (Just ask Donnie Jr-- no, don't, because he won't admit anymore than he and his mother were abused.)

Teens are easily tempted into nasty behavior, and these can claim they are just following the example set by the president, after all. He doesn't vandalize with physical items like a pole, but he still manages to do damage with his anger and manipulation.

[MosheFeingold]

5. I don't disagree

I'm just talking about "in general". There are many, many exceptions, in all directions.

Heck, there are many great adults who had no parents to speak of, at all.

Parenting is hard, and I know I could not have done it without my wife.

[RKP5637]

6. Trump IMO is the root cause of it all with his never ending hateful rhetoric and racism. n/t

[YessirAtsaFact]

9. The composition of families hasn't that much recently

But the OrangeTurd’s hateful rhetoric has given impressionable people permission to be assholes

[marylandblue]

10. Our entire social structure has changed in the last 200 years

In particular, communities are weaker. People are isolated in their homes, work far away and don't know their neighbors. Returning to traditional families won't work. We need better community support for families whether they are traditional or not.

[Hsapienssapiens]

12. I'm afraid it's worse than that.

Psychopathy is biological and incurable. Childhood manifestations include these sorts of antisocial acts and cruelty. A psychopath can have the nicest, most loving parents in the world and still be a monster. It is a defect; they lack receptors and neurons crucial to empathic functioning.

Conservatives have been shown to be far more enamored of psychopathic memes than others.
Trump was rated more psychopathic than Hitler in a pre 2016 election issue of Scientific American. Cambridge Analytica specifically targeted psychopaths using personality profiling and recruited them for Trump. We are seeing the bitter fruits.

[MosheFeingold]

13. I don't disagree but I don't see the connection

From the video, this looks like 4-5 young black (or mixed race) kids from the neighborhood, varying ages, probably topping out at 13-14.

I doubt they have developed political opinions (excepting what parents and teachers tell them) and, just statistically, I doubt they were raised in a fire-breathing Archie Bunker household and moved to the city.

It's possible, but unlikely, in this particular circumstance.

This is more the "punk kid" situation.

I was a punk kid that did all sorts of petty crime, from running numbers to stealing from curbside stands, to, yes, breaking some windows (on the Italian side of the street -- copying Daddy, in that regard, although I think he might have been getting paid by someone to do it).

This is more of a swift-kick-in-ass* and then the parents standing by while the kid works at the shul until the window is paid off kind of situation.

Or at least that's how I would have handled it.


* Yes, I know about the studies about corporal punishment. Never a fan, myself. But all things have a time and place. And literally being dragged by my ear by my mother for about 100 yards to apologize to Mr. Bouselli (who owned a small store I vandalized) left an impression on me.

[JudyM]

3. Regrettably, K&R.

This post would be good in General Discussion, too.

[RKP5637]

7. Yes, it would be! K&R! n/t

[MosheFeingold]

8. Probably

But I'm not up for yet another "Jews deserve it because Israel" conversation.

[JudyM]

11. We hear you on that. Stomach turning.

Visibility would be good though. Maybe it’ll get enough recs here...