The killing of nine people at Emanuel AME Church two weeks ago during a Bible study class hit close to home for Great Neck resident Eric Rosen— he grew up less than two miles from the historic church in Charleston, S.C..
“I never had any issues at all, everyone got along nicely,” said Rosen, who is president of Young Israel of Great Neck and a member of gthe Great Neck Community Council of Synagogue Presidents. “I went to a high school that was 30-35 percent black. I never once had any problem.”
In a letter to the congregants of the Emanuel AME, which was sent this week to the Great Neck News as a letter to the editor, Rosen said that at a recent Great Neck Community Council of Synagogue Presidents meeting, members expressed “collective horror” over the shooting.
“We stand in solidarity with you and wish you no more sorrow or pain, and hope that you will be able to emerge stronger and unified, with a new sense of purpose,” the letter reads.
Rosen said he grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood about two miles away from the Emanuel AME Church. His father, Samuel, owned drugstores in downtown Charleston for more than 30 years, and he had a great relationship with the black community, Rosen said.
On June 17, nine people were shot and killed in the 199-year old church, which has played an important role in the Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter movements. Images of the suspect, Dylann Roof, show him wearing symbols sometimes worn by white supremacists, such as the flag of apartheid-era South Africa. Other images show Roof holding a Confederate flag.
When he heard of the shooting, Rosen said, he was horrified.
He said the AME shooting along with the shooting of Walter Scott, a black man, by a white police officer in North Charleston, has really hit home with him.
“That’s two things in the last few months,” Rosen said. “Usually Charleston is such a calm and serene and very open place in terms of people’s ways of thought; everyone is very, very friendly.”
He said what has been happening in Charleston within the past couple months is not emblematic of the city’s people as a whole. He said he did not remember seeing any specific incidents of racism while growing up.
Rosen pointed to the fact that the Charleston police chief from 1982 to 2005, Reuben Greenberg, was both Jewish and African-American, as a testament to the city’s positive relations between demographics.
“It’s an emblem of the great relations that exist there,” Rosen said. “During my lifetime, my knowledge of the city has always been one of great relations and peace.”
The shooting prompted debate across the country about the appropriateness of the Confederate battle flag – which flies near the South Carolina State House – being displayed in public.
Removing the Confederate flag from the state house, Rosen said, is the correct thing to do.
“It didn’t make much of a fuss while I was growing up; it was just a thing,” Rosen said. “It was symbolic of a time long ago and had different meanings for many people.”
Rosen also said Meir and Tara Feldman, both rabbis at Temple Beth-El of Great Neck, were going down to Charleston this week to meet with church leaders.
Tara Feldman said in an email that she and Meir expected to arrived in South Carolina late Thursday evening.
