Shooting rattles Jewish center in San Francisco
A man fired blanks from a handgun at a Jewish center in San Francisco Wednesday, shocking a group gathered for a study session in a community space serving mainly Russian-speaking Jews
Screenshots from CCTV footage of the Schneerson Center in San Francisco, Feb. 1, 2023, as an unknown man fires blanks into the room during a study session. Courtesy of CCTV
This article originally appeared on J. The Jewish News of Northern California and was reprinted here with permission.
A man fired blanks from a handgun at a Jewish center in San Francisco Wednesday, shocking a group gathered for a study session in a community space serving mainly Russian-speaking Jews.
The man entered the Schneerson Center around 7:20 p.m. in the middle of a session on the life of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, according to Rabbi Bentzion Pil, who leads the community.
The man said in accented Russian that he was from Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, and that he was going to start shooting.
“I thought he was joking,” Pil told J. on Thursday. “He looked like a Russian Jew.”
Located in a Richmond District neighborhood near what’s often called “Little Russia,” the Schneerson Center is a node of Jewish life for immigrants from the former Soviet Union in the Bay Area, where FSU households number between 15,000 and 20,000, according to Rabbi Shimon Margolin, who leads a local nonprofit serving Russian-speaking Jews.
After the man entered, Pil said he first asked whether he wanted to join their session. It soon became clear that was not his intention.
A jarring video of the incident captured on a security camera shows a man wearing a baseball cap, jacket and sneakers enter the room and gesture animatedly with his arms while speaking to those seated around a table. After about 15 seconds, he reaches into his jacket pocket and reveals a handgun. He appears to struggle to cock the weapon, while an elderly man makes a phone call and starts walking toward him. As the elderly man approaches, the suspect starts firing his weapon, and the elderly man crouches down. He fires in a direction away from those seated around the table, then proceeds to fire around the room while some people clutch their ears and duck. In total the suspect fires between six and eight shots. Then he leaves.
“Everyone was stunned and shocked,” Pil said.
The video shows little movement from a dozen or so people around the table — many of whom are in their 60s or older, shul members said.
Pil said the group was perplexed. “It was so unexpected from him,” he said.
The fact that the man was clearly not a “Nazi” nor a Muslim terrorist indicated to the group that their lives were probably not in danger, he added. One person in the group said he might have seen the suspect before. Still, after the shooting started, Pil said he went into the kitchen to grab a knife, but by the time he got back the man was gone.
After the man left, those gathered deliberated about whether to call the police, Pil said.
“I still believe it was just a crazy guy,” he said. “He didn’t scream any antisemitic words or expressions.”
Ultimately they decided it wasn’t worth contacting the police because they were unhurt and they doubted the man would be kept in detention for long if he was caught.
Only the next day was law enforcement contacted after some of the younger community members heard about what had happened.
“I was shaken,” said Alon Chanukov, who viewed the incident on security footage. He said he reached the San Francisco Police Department Thursday morning and was told the matter would be referred to the investigations unit. The SFPD did not respond to a J. request for information in time for this article.
Chanukov said the video disturbed him greatly.
“There is a man, with a gun, who was in my shul. And I see elderly people cowering as he is firing his gun,” he said.
“This is a terrorist attack. The point of this was to cause terror,” Chanukov said. “Not to kill people. But to literally terrify Jews, as best as I can see.”
According to statistics compiled by the California attorney general’s office, hate crimes targeting Jews have been on an upward trend over the past 10 years. Jews are the most frequent target of religiously motivated hate crimes, numbers that accord with national figures.
In an interview with J., the rebbetzin Mattie Pil, Rabbi Bentzion Pil’s wife, lent another interpretation as to why the mostly senior Jews from the former Soviet Union did not contact police.
“They still feel like they’re in the Soviet Union,” she said. “There, when something happens, it’s always the fault of the Jews. If you called police, it would be your fault. So they didn’t want to make any waves.”
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