Three people are confirmed to have been shot dead inside the kosher shop: Linda Mindel Ferencz, 33, a mother of three children who owned the store with her husband; Moshe Deutsch, 24, a rab­bin­ic­al student from Brooklyn; and Miguel Douglas, 49, who worked in the store. A police detective, Joseph Seals had earlier con­fron­ted the assail­ants and was shot and killed.

If, as is being reported, this attack delib­er­ately targeted a Jewish facility it would con­sti­tute a further lethal antisemitic episode in the United States following the massacre at a synagogue in Pitt­s­burgh in October last year, and a fatal shooting at a Chabad house in Poway, Cali­for­nia in April this year. This attack comes at a time of soaring antisemitism in New York state and its environs where assaults targeting Jewish people have become alarm­ingly com­mon­place.

This tragedy demon­strates once more that antisemitism is not merely a condition confined to a single political ideology or religious group. To protect our societies from this evil and to ensure that Jews can go about their lives in peace, it is vital that there is an under­stand­ing of the depth of antisemitism, its nature, and its mani­fest­a­tions and a complete resolve on the part of gov­ern­ments, educators and house­holds to drive this murderous condition from our midst. If we fail to do this, the very notion of free and tolerant societies will be in danger.