(JTA) The brother of a San Diego-area Jewish dentist killed at his office on Thursday says Benjamin Harouni was “murdered in cold blood” in an act of hate and pledged to set up a nonprofit to combat hatred in his memory.
Local police have not declared the incident a hate crime, saying that the motive for the shooting remains under investigation and noting that the alleged murderer appears to have been “a disgruntled former customer” of Harouni’s dental practice.
But Jake Harouni’s Instagram post is emblematic of a coalescing discourse surrounding his brother’s death: Jews and pro-Israel activists say the killing, allegedly at the hands of 29-year-old Mohammed Abdulkareem, was likely an act of antisemitism amid the heated atmosphere surrounding the Israel-Hamas war.
