(Jewish Group) 2 weeks after deadly shooting, blacks and Jews in Jersey City unite for charity drive
All day Monday, volunteers trickled in and out of the Mary McLeod Bethune Life Center in Jersey City’s Greenville neighborhood, lining up boxes upon boxes of pretzel challah, soup mix, hummus, turkey and chocolate. Trucks backed up to the community center to unload pallets of food and toys from nearby Jewish vendors.
Thirteen days earlier, and just four blocks down Martin Luther King Drive, two shooters entered the JC Kosher Supermarket, killing three people during a gun battle with police and shaking this African-American neighborhood with a growing Hasidic community. (The shooters had killed a police officer before taking a van to the market.)
On Monday, the feeling could not have been more different, black and Jewish volunteers working together on a charity drive on the second night of Hanukkah and two days before Christmas. The food and presents were delivered to hundreds of local families in need.
“We’ve been in communication since the tragedy on Dec. 10 trying to find ways to work together as a community,” said Pam Johnson, a drive organizer and the leader of the Jersey City Anti-Violence Coalition Movement. “We wanted to make sure that we sent a clear message of solidarity, that we are all in this together.”
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