Jersey City Pauses to Remember the One Year Anniversary of JC Kosher Market Massacre

By Yehudit Garmaise

  Although tonight is the first night of Chanukah, today also, sadly, marks the day last year when four people were ruthlessly murdered in Jersey City Kosher Market, which was owned by Moishe David Ferencz, but who, with the enormous help of the owners of other kosher grocery stores and Jewish and non-Jewish members of the community, reopened his new store just two blocks away from his old location, which sadly was the site of horrific violence.

   The new store, called Olive Branch Kosher Market, opened in mid-March, just before the start of the COVID pandemic, which forced Mr. Ferencz to move temporarily to Kiryas Yoel, where his sister lives, and make the hour-long commute each way to Jersey City to run his store.

   On Dec. 10, 2019, police detective Joseph Seals, who was a 13-year veteran, husband, and father of five, was meeting an informant, at Bayview Cemetery in Jersey City, when in a chance encounter, he noticed, approached, and was shot dead by the assailants, who looked suspicious, as they were wearing military gear and driving a stolen U-Haul van that was linked to a murder the previous weekend of 34-year-old Jersey City resident Michael Rumberger in nearby Bayonne, New Jersey.

   Later, in the U-Haul, investigators found a bomb and bomb-making materials, plus in the store after the attacks, investigators found five weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

  After killing Detective Seals, who was credited with ultimately thwarting the assailants’ original plans to cause more widespread devastation against Jews and against the law enforcement community, assailants David Anderson and Francine Graham, fled the scene in their stolen van and drove to the Jersey City Kosher Supermarket, where they entered the store and committed what prosecutors called “a hate-fueled domestic terror attack.”

   Ultimately, Anderson and Graham fatally shot Mr. Ferencz’s wife, Leah Mindel, who was 33 and the mother of three children, her 24-year-old cousin Moshe Hersh Deitsch, a rabbinical student, and 49-year-old employee Douglas Miguel Rodrigeuz, who selflessly and bravely pushed Deitsch’s friend Chaim Lax out the door to safety. 

    In addition to Lax, two other customers escaped alive, however, a shoot-out with Jersey City police officers lasted for an hour, until finally, Anderson and Graham were shot and killed when an armored personnel carrier, like a tank, designed for military and law enforcement use, called “the Lenco BearCat” rammed through the front of the kosher store. 

   Jersey City paused today to mark the tragedy, which later prompted both New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign legislation that expanded the definition of terrorism under state law.

  At the time, Murphy said the law will make it clear that New Jersey is committed to the elimination of "hate in all its forms," and Gov. Cuomo reached out to Jewish communities to show his support in many ways.