Asheville synagogue leader speaks out on library assault, community unrest

By Justin Berger

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    ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (WLOS) — A leader from one of Asheville’s synagogues is speaking out for the first time since the assault at West Asheville Library on Saturday, June 29.

Rochelle Reich, executive director at Congregation Beth Israel, sat down with News 13’s Justin Berger for the second time in less than 30 days.

On June 5, they spoke just 24 hours after two men waving Israeli flags were assaulted outside of the restaurant, Avenue M. This assault occurred several feet from the restaurant’s windows that had at least one swastika painted on them.

“It’s horrible. I mean it’s horrible. We’ve got an escalating situation in our community that is really unacceptable — [that] isn’t even the word for it, for what we’re talking about,” said Reich. We’ve just disintegrated in terms of acceptable behavior.”

Question: “What have the last four days, as a leader of one of the congregations, been like for you?”

Answer: “It’s been really hard because people are scared and they’re learning about what happened at the library from various sources: They’re learning about it from Instagram. They’re learning about it from WLOS. They’re learning about it from friends. They’re learning about it from friends and family that live out of the country that are sending them video clips of what happened,” Reich said.

Reich said in the last 48 hours alone, she has received dozens of messages.

Question: “I would assume there are at least a handful of individuals of those several dozen that are scared, more scared than they were last month?”

Answer: “I mean, there’s a mix of scared and like outrage I think, and I want to temper outrage because that is an emotion that brings us to places like Saturday, as opposed to calming things,” Reich said.

Reich spoke about the distinction between what is happening in Israel versus what happened in Asheville.

It’s important to draw a distinction, I think, between what is happening in the Middle East and what is happening here,” Reich said. “They’re related, but they’re not the same. People who are drawing swastikas, people who are beating up people because of their religion —this has nothing to do with what’s happening in the Middle East. These are two separate things. On Monday, July 1, News 13 spoke with Sen. Julie Mayfield, who represents all of Asheville, and Meredith Weisel from the Anti-Defamation League.

Both encouraged community leaders to use their voices, especially at times like these.

“Call out what’s right and what’s wrong in this community, whether that’s public or private, individual conversations or headline news,” Reich said. “It all has to happen and it’s going to take all of us, so this is me doing that part on my end and I challenge everyone else to do the same.”

Reich emphasized the need to continue dialogue amidst the ongoing fear.

It shouldn’t be that anyone walks to an event at the library that thinks ‘I wonder if this is going to be dangerous,'” Reich said. “That shouldn’t be an expectation of anyone in this community… We should be in a place where we can have conversations that are respectful and that move the needle forward in terms of respectful community working together for this beautiful place that we live in that we are screwing up.

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