On Thursday, an Orthodox Jewish man stabbed six people at Jerusalem’s Gay Pride Parade. Now one of the seriously wounded, 16-year-old Shira Banki, has died. The Associated Press reports that Banki died Sunday morning, her organs will be donated.
The attack was committed by Yishai Shlissel who, ten years prior, had committed a similar crime, stabbing three people at the 2005 Pride Parade. He was sentenced to a lengthy prison term, but was released early. The AP reports that Shlissel was released just three weeks prior to the most recent attack and “had angrily spoken out against the parade after his release.” “The battle is not over,” Shlissel told an ultra-Orthodox radio station days before the attack. “Those unclean people want to continue defiling Jerusalem.”
The New York Times reports that Jerusalem’s modest-sized parade has long been a contentious event in the city:
“[...] many Orthodox Jews objecting to the public display, saying that it defiles the city and offends many of its residents. An ultra-Orthodox news website referred to it on Thursday as ‘the Parade of Abomination.’”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised justice for those responsible, calling Shlissel’s attack “a despicable hate crime.”
Image via Getty.
DISCUSSION
I’ve always wanted to ask a murderous religious zealot why they would violate the first commandment to enforce some much more banal rule, and what their god would think of that. Morally it’s so repugnant to me as a secular humanist that I can’t even conceive of his pureile hate-crusted little heart, but even just logically; how the fuck does that work?