Five Stabbed At New York Hanukkah Celebration; Gunman Kills Two In Texas Church
LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN ANCHOR: Stabbed at a Hanukkah party.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A civil rights icon faces the battle of a lifetime. Congressman John Lewis has pancreatic cancer. Welcome back to EARLY START, everyone, this holiday week. I'm Christine Romans.</s>SANTIAGO: I'm Leyla Santiago.</s>ROMANS: Nice to see you.</s>SANTIAGO: Nice to see you, too, on this last Monday of the year.</s>ROMANS: I know, that's right.</s>SANTIAGO: The time now is 5:30 here in New York. We begin with a vitriolic rise in anti-Semitism coming to a violent climax during Hanukkah. Five members of the Jewish community stabbed at a holiday celebration in the New York suburb of Monsey. Witnesses say that the attacker struck at the rabbi's home</s>ARON KOHN, WITNESSES SHOOTING AT HANUKKAH CELEBRATION: I saw him walking in by the door. I asked who is coming in the middle of the night with an umbrella. While I was saying that he pulled it out from the thing and he started to run into the big room, which was on the left side. And I threw tables and chairs -- that he should get out of here. I ran into the other room because I tried to save my life. I saw him running down this way, so I ran out and two ladies came along with me. They were hysterical.</s>SANTIAGO: The stabbings capped off weeks of recent violence against Jews in and around New York City, including an attack on a New Jersey City kosher market earlier this month. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says that there have been 13 anti-Semitic attacks in New York this month alone.</s>GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: We have to change the laws to call this what it is. This is terrorism. It is domestic terrorism. There is an American cancer. It's a spreading of hate. But what is terrorism? It is a hate-motivated act to instill fear based on race, color, creed with the intent to murder, and that's what this was.</s>ROMANS: The suspect, seen running away after the attack, was found in New York City. Grafton Thomas' car tag was captured by a license plate reader on the George Washington Bridge about an hour after the attack. Two officers block the car and arrested Thomas. He pleaded not guilty yesterday. His attorney and his pastor say he has a long history of mental illness.</s>REV. WENDY PAIGE, HUDSON HIGHLANDS COOPERATIVE PARISH: Grafton is not a terrorist. He is a man who has mental illness in America and the systems that be have not served him well.</s>SANTIAGO: Less than 24 hours after the stabbings, Hanukkah celebrations were underway where it took place. The consul general of Israel in New York made a worrisome observation about the number of candles lit during the eight-day holiday.</s>DANI DAYAN, CONSUL GENERAL OF ISRAEL: In this Hanukkah, we suffered more anti-Semitic incidents than the candles that we lit and that is impossible to bear. What we saw now has to be the last time.</s>ROMANS: So how to make it the last time? New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio outlined new steps to protect New York City's Jewish community. They included greater police presence in heavily-Jewish areas of Brooklyn and new education programs in schools.</s>MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (R), NEW YORK CITY: We have to reach our young people more effectively. This is the crux of so much of what we're seeing right now -- young people who somehow have come to assume that bias is acceptable. We will not let that happen in New York City.</s>ROMANS: Two of the stabbing victims in Monsey have now been released from the hospital. The anti-Defamation League reports anti-Semitic incidents nearly doubled between 2015 and 2018.</s>SANTIAGO: A man shot and killed two worshipers at a church service in a Fort Worth suburb Sunday before two members of that church security shot and killed the gunman. The attack was caught on the livestream broadcast by the West Freeway Church of Christ. More than 200 people were inside. Now, let me walk you through what you're about to see. We've actually blurred some parts but we warn you the video is very disturbing. As you'll see near the top of your screen, the whole attack unfolded in six seconds.</s>ROMANS: The FBI describes the shooter as relatively transient with roots in the area. The gunman and one of the victims died on the way to the hospital. The second victim flatlined and was revived, but later died. Despite the loss of life, officials praised heroic church members.</s>JEOFF WILLIAMS, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: And it cannot be overstated how important it is that everyone recognize what took place here today. The citizens who were inside that church undoubtedly saved 242 other parishioners.</s>BRITT FARMER, SENIOR MINISTER, WEST FREEWAY CHURCH OF CHRIST: We lost two great men today but it could have been a lot worse.</s>SANTIAGO: The senior minister says that the church will meet tonight to continue that service that was interrupted by the shooting. Texas recently actually changed its gun laws in response to the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting that left 26 people dead. Licensed handgun owners can now legally carry weapons into places of worship.</s>ROMANS: All right, 35 minutes past the hour. The Iowa caucuses five short weeks away. What remark Joe Biden is walking back and what promise Bernie Sanders is making on health care.