Two years after the high school massacre, Parkland Jews still don't feel safe

Seventeen people were murdered at a Florida school when a former student entered the compound and opened fire, five of them members of the "Kol Tikva" reform community. Since the deadly incident and the terror attack at the Tree of Life synagogue, the personal perception of Jews in the area has changed: "There is a constant sense of vigilance"

Two years after the high school massacre, Parkland Jews still don't feel safe

(In the video: Shooter Nicholas Cruz's record on Massacre, February 14, 2018)

Zoe Fox-Schneider was a sophomore at Marjorie Stoman Douglas High School when Nicholas Cruz, a former student, came in armed with a semi-automatic rifle. Zoe, now 17, remembers well the emergency alarm sounded throughout the school and how he ran with her friends toward the exit, before being told to return inside and take cover.

Suddenly she heard gunshots. Fox-Schneider found herself hiding in the library, where she hid in the closet with her classmates for two and a half hours. She emerged unharmed, but the shooter murdered 14 students and three teachers before fleeing the scene, leaving behind one of the deadliest shooting arenas in the history of school attacks in America.

In the months following the shooting, Fox-Schneider succeeded in school, thanks in part to the work the teachers tried not to burden students with many homework. But a year later, when school returned to normal, she found it difficult to cope. Any loud noise made her anxious, and the girl lived anxiously for a possible shooting incident.

Read more on the subject

Students evicted from school after massacre, February 14, 2018 (Photo: Reuters)

Florida High School Shooting, USA, February 14, 2018 (Photo: Reuters)

"It was just too much," she told JTA in an interview held at a coffee shop near her old high school in Parkland, a quiet suburb of Fort Lauderdale in South Florida, known for its excellent education system. "It's just always in my mind."

Many members of the Parkland Jewish community have had a similar experience, said Rabbi Brad Boxman of Kol Tikva, the Reform synagogue where Fox-Schneider is a member. Five of the 17 victims were Jews and Boxman conducted the funeral service of two of them.

Jamie is gone, the kindergarten closet for students: The stories of Florida deaths

A kind of anchor tied to the ankles

Parkland is home to one of Florida's largest Jewish communities. It consists mainly of middle-class families who came in search of quality of life, comfortable weather and a supportive Jewish environment. About half a million Jews live in the South Florida area, and contrary to popular opinion, not everyone is a pensioner who came to spend the retirement years in the pleasant sun. In the area, which stretches from Miami to Fort Lauderdale, there are also many young Jewish families, Orthodox immigrants to the area, and Jewish immigrants from Latin America.

Last Friday, a memorial service was held in the synagogue to mark two years of the shooting attack. "You live your life as normal and then suddenly, without any warning, you are thrown back to that horrible day and it forces you to deal with it again," Boxman said. "I think there are many in the community who are in this place right now. They may be moving on, but they have a kind of anchor attached to their ankles, which reminds them that you can't get too far away from it."

"There is a much, much greater concern about security." Rally in memory of victims of massacre, 2018 (Photo: Reuters)

Rally in memory of victims of the Florida Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, Feb. 15, 2018 (Photo: Reuters, Reuters)

In the Parkland Jewish community, the mood changed from one end to the other following the shooting attack. The murderous incident at the school, in addition to the October 2018 attack at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Fistburg, caused the area's Jews to think differently about their own safety.

"There is much, much greater concern about security," said Rabbi Michael Gold of Beit Torah Sha'arei Tzedek Synagogue, a conservative synagogue in nearby town, Tamark. "Today, you cannot enter our building without meeting a security guard at the entrance," said Gold, who worked as a rabbi at a nearby hospital after the shooting and comforted the victims' families.

But despite security improvements, Boxman said there is still no sense of security. "There is a constant sense of vigilance. We are trying to figure out what is the best way to feel a little more protected, alongside knowing that there is no perfect solution," he said. "I think it's more noticeable in us, not because we feel more about the intention, but because we went through it and became more aware that random things like this might happen."

Nicholas Cruz massacre in court, February 15, 2018 (Photo: Reuters)

Nicholas Cruz, Operation Florida High School Massacre, Brought to Court, Feb. 15, 2018 (Photo: Reuters, Reuters)

The high school shooting turned the national spotlight on Parkland and its residents. Students and parents of the victims became prominent activists in the public campaign to restrict arms sales. They led the effort to persuade lawmakers to approve reform that would limit the availability of deadly weapons, and organized protest marches and protests across the state.

Prominent activists include Fred Gutenberg and Andrew Pollack, two Jewish fathers who each bribed his daughter in the shooting attack. Both have become key figures in the public debate over gun availability in American society, and each represents a different end of the political spectrum. Gutenberg is calling for legislation to restrict free arms sales and support Democratic Party politicians. He was recently put out of the nation-state speech after rejoicing when President Donald Trump spoke out for the Second Amendment to a constitution that guarantees the right to bear arms.

Pollack, on the other hand, supports Trump's approach, arguing that there is no need to change the law and restrict gun sales to improve school security. Speaking to the JTA in 2018, both said their public and political activities did not help cure the pain of losing their daughters.

Survive the massacre. Fox-Schneider and Romsky (Photo: Josephine Dolsten, JTA)

Zoe Fox-Schneider and Talia Rumsky Rescued from the Parkland Massacre, Florida, 2020 (Photo: Josephine Dolsten, JTA, Official Website)

Even those who survived the tragedy are still living the trauma. Rebbetzin Melissa Zalkin Stallman, who recently served as educational director at the Kol Tikva Synagogue, said that some of the youth she worked with were simply unable to return to school and preferred online classes. "Many students still can't get through a full day at that school," she said. "That part of the story is really sad. In the end, there is no sense of security in your schools."

Fox-Schneider is one of those students. After a conversation with the counselor and her parents, she chose to spend her final year at a community college in the area so she would not be forced to be constantly reminded of the shooting. The girl said the change helped her cope with the anxiety she suffered and now plans to go to university "as far as possible" once she finishes school this spring. "I need to change the atmosphere. I have to be somewhere that doesn't remind me of everything that happened all the time," she said.

Her classmate, Talia Rumsky, said she too was thinking of moving away from graduate school and starting over, but she fears that in a foreign place she will not be surrounded by people who can understand what she has been through. "There are better days and there are days when it is hard to cope with what happened," says Rumsky. "It's important for me to have people who have had a similar experience talking to them."