Posted to Chabad News, Jewish News on
A mourner attending a memorial service in North Miami Beach, Fla. for Rabbi Yosef Raksin, HYD, had his car defaced with a swastika, reaffirming the prevailing belief that his murder was a hate crime. The local police, however, remain unconvinced.

Anti-Semitic Vandalism at Memorial for Murdered Rabbi

A mourner attending a memorial service in North Miami Beach, Fla. for Rabbi Yosef Raksin, HYD, had his car defaced with a swastika, reaffirming the prevailing belief that his murder was a hate crime. The local police, however, remain unconvinced.

From the JTA:

A swastika and Iron Cross were etched Sunday on a BMW owned by the mourner, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. The Miami-Dade Police Department is investigating the vandalism.

The service at the Bais Menachem Chabad synagogue was held a day after Raksin was shot and killed while was on his way to Sabbath morning services there. Raksin, 60, of Brooklyn, N.Y., was in south Florida visiting his daughter and her family.

On Tuesday, hundreds gathered in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn for the funeral procession for Raksin, a father of six who was a leader in the Orthodox community. His hearse passed Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters there.

Click here to continue reading at the JTA.

Related Articles

2 Comments

  • Milhouse

    Sorry, you’re wrong. The vandalism to the car does nothing to affirm any speculation about the murder.

    The vandalism (if it isn’t a hoax) certainly appears to have been motivated by antisemitism, and may be related to the earlier vandalism to a shul in the area. One likely scenario is that the same antisemites who vandalised the shul saw their opportunity, and deliberately hit a car at the memorial service, knowing how hurtful it would be.

    But this has no bearing at all on the murder. There is no reason at all to suppose that the vandals have any connection to the murderers, or even any idea who they are,

    (Another explanation for the car vandalism, that can’t be dismissed, is that it’s a hoax, intended to evoke precisely the reaction that it did. There have been too many such hoaxes in the last 20 years or so, for anyone to be sure this isn’t one. In general that should be one’s first presumption in any well-publicised allegation of a “hate crime”; the majority of such allegations turn out to be either hoaxes or ordinary crimes unrelated to ethnicity.)