MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Four rabbis and a policeman were killed at a Jerusalem synagogue Tuesday after two Palestinian cousins armed with a gun and butcher knives attacked during morning prayers.
And the attack hits close to home for some in South Florida, where several students had the privilege of studying under one of the three Americans killed, Rabbi Moshe Twersky.
"You wake up in the morning and you hear that four people (were) killed and you go, 'Please, why again? Why again?'" said Danny Mocton.
Mocton said he was sick to see a family text about the news and was then devastated to learn Twersky was one of the five killed in Jerusalem.
Mocton said Twersky was his teacher and a personal icon to him and other students at Yeshiva University.
"I watched him, watched him pray -- his praying was so uplifting," said Mocton.
Mocton described the rabbi as "sweet and nice" and said he felt disgusted that the rabbi was killed in such an "animalistic way."
"What concerns the Jewish community here is how the incidents in Jerusalem and the Middle East cause spillover antisemitism in the Jewish neighborhoods here in Miami," said Chaim Shacham, the Israeli Consul General.
South Florida has a significant orthodox community, and more generally, the fourth-largest Jewish population in the country.
"We don't fear fear," said Mocton. "We fear for our brothers in Israel."
"But not here?" asked Local 10 News reporter Glenna Milberg.
"Not here," said Mocton.
Rabbi Menachem Nissel, visiting South Florida for a speaking engagement, intimately knew the four rabbis who were killed in Tuesday's brutal attack. They all worked and taught at the synagogue.
"For myself, I'm going to have to picture myself going back to that place and seeing the empty chairs," said Nissel. "I know where they pray. They're not going to be there anymore."
Nissel was closest with Rabbi Kalman Levine, from Kansas?. He said he treasured their 35-year? friendship.
?"It's only really dawning on me now how my life is going to be different when I go home," said Nissel.
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