Posted on 07/29/19
| News Source: Vosizneias.com
Please daven for Yosef Noach ben Leah Tzivyah.
Miami, FL - A 68-year-old man was wounded outside a Miami area synagogue in a weekend shooting, police said Monday, adding it was too early to determine whether the attack constituted a hate crime.
The victim, identified by the rabbi as temple member Yosef Lifshutz, was shot several times in the legs Sunday evening and underwent surgery at a hospital, police said. The man was listed in stable condition at Aventura Hospital after the shooting.
The shooter remained at large and was being sought, Miami-Dade police detective Alvaro Zabaleta told news outlets. Zabaleta said the attacker got out of a black Chevrolet Impala around 6:30 p.m. Sunday and shot the victim as he approached the front door of the Young Israel of Greater Miami temple.
The rabbi of the synagogue described Lifshutz as an esteemed member of the temple community.
“He’s a wonderful person,” Rabbi David Lehrfield told WSVN . “Everybody loves him.”
Police were searching for the shooter. The car had circled the temple several times as Lifshutz walked toward the building, Zabaleta told WSVN.
“It circled once again, and by that time the victim was approaching the door,” Zabaleta said. “That’s when the driver of the Impala exits the vehicle and opens fire towards the victim, striking him multiple times in the lower extremities.”
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office’s hate crimes unit was reviewing the case, spokeswoman Lissette Valdes-Valle said Monday.
Damon Salzman, president of Young Israel of Greater Miami, posted on the temple’s Facebook page that the person who shot Lifshutz is a bully.
“It does not take a criminal mastermind to shoot an elderly person sitting on a bench. It does not take terrorist to try and kill someone isolated and defenseless,” Salzman wrote. “It takes a coward. It takes someone without courage to attack an elderly defenseless man sitting in front of a place of sanctuary. It takes someone devoid of humanity.”