The video showing an ISIS hostage being burned alive released Tuesday horrified the world with its brutality. For the family of Steven Sotloff, who was also murdered by ISIS, it brought back the trauma that they lived through less than a year ago.
“It’s déjà vu all over again for a lot of people,” said Rabbi Terry Bookman of Temple Beth Am, and also the rabbi for the Sotloff family. “When they see this, they see somebody else’s child. They don’t see a journalist. They see somebody else’s son who was just murdered.”
Sotloff, who like his family was from Pinecrest, was captured by ISIS while he was working as a freelance journalist in Syria. Last summer, he was beheaded by the terrorist group. Bookman said the family’s reaction to the ongoing ISIS murders, including the latest slaying of a captured Jordanian pilot, is similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.
“It is almost like that, although they are not clinically for them, but it’s just, BOOM, right there and it is hard to avoid the news. I think they try to avoid the news,” Rabbi Bookman said.
As the Sotloff family continues to mourn the loss of their son, there is growing concern for the fate of the last known American hostage in ISIS hands, a 26-year-old female aid worker. Her condition is unknown to American authorities.
As for the crisis with ISIS in the Middle East, Bookman said the solution has to come from within.
“Muslims throughout the world and I think we are starting to see this, have to come together and say this is not us, we will not allow this to speak for us,” Bookman said.
