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Suspect in Memphis Jewish school shooting was present when police shot and killed his father in 2003
(JTA) — The man who was shot by police in Memphis, Tennessee, on Monday after allegedly bringing a gun into a Jewish school there was the son of a Jewish physician who himself was killed by Memphis police officers 20 years ago.
The man who tried to enter Margolin Hebrew Academy with a gun was Joel Bowman, a friend of the family who was a former classmate told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. confirming a report by a local Memphis TV station that cited family and friends in identifying Bowman. Bowman is hospitalized in critical condition.
The family friend told JTA that Bowman, who is 33, was a former student at Margolin Hebrew Academy, Memphis’ main Orthodox school located on the city’s east side. On Monday, Rep. Steve Cohen, a Jewish Democrat who represents Memphis in Congress, also said the gunman had attended the school.
According to his Facebook page, Bowman is the son of Dr. Anthony Bowman, a cardiologist trained at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico who died in May 2003 after being shot by police officers outside his house in Memphis. A death notice published in the local newspaper at the time encouraged donations in Anthony Bowman’s memory to be given to Margolin Hebrew Academy.
Now, Joel Bowman’s former classmates and community members are left processing what has happened to him.
“Genuinely to the core, I don’t think he would ever intentionally hurt someone,” Brittney Eshelman-Worch, who attended Margolin Hebrew Academy with Bowman, told a local news station. “He has struggled with mental health for a number of years.”
Twenty years ago, Joel Bowman’s mother, Susan, called 911 because her husband had begun behaving erratically and holding a handgun to his head, according to a legal complaint she filed the following year seeking compensation. She and Joel, then a minor, were in the “zone of danger” at the time and had experienced emotional distress, the complaint said.
Anthony Bowman’s death and that of another man at the hands of Memphis officers on the same day prompted the Memphis Police Department to pilot the use of nonlethal weapons such as Tasers, the local newspaper reported at the time.
Susan Bowman’s complaint was ultimately dismissed in 2010 because she could not “in good faith allege that the police officers’ conduct … was motivated by considerations of race, color, religion, ancestry or national origin,” a requirement of the statute under which she had pursued compensation, according to the ruling by a Tennessee court.
By then, Joel Bowman had finished high school and received a scholarship to attend Lev HaTorah, a yeshiva in Israel, during the 2009-2010 academic year. The scholarship was named after Alisa Flatow, a Brandeis University student who was killed in a suicide bombing in Gaza in 1995.
An estimated 10,000 Jews live in the Memphis area, according to a 2006 analysis by the local Jewish federation. Many of them are affiliated with the city’s Orthodox community, which is unusually dense for a Southern city. The historic Baron Hirsch Synagogue boasts of being the largest Orthodox congregation in the United States, and the community has also been chronicled in bestselling novels by the Jewish writer Tova Mirvis.
But faced with an aging population, the Orthodox community has sought to attract new families in recent years. Bowman had been one of only two boys in his Margolin Hebrew Academy class for a few years in elementary and high school, his former classmate told JTA, and he stayed in Memphis after many of his classmates left.
Public posts on Bowman’s Facebook page, where he had posted about basketball games and punk concerts during high school, offer little information about his life following his time in the school. He posted about Suicide Prevention Day in 2019 and in April of this year posted an image of Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee, Jews murdered in a shooting attack in the West Bank.
In the last week, Bowman’s public posts became more frequent. Only July 24, he posted that he was on the verge of launching a farm and flower business.
On Saturday, he posted a picture of his father’s grave, located in the Anshei Sphard Cemetery in Memphis. In an extended, disjointed post accompanying the picture, he wrote about having a “therapy breakthrough” and said, using a Hebrew term for God, that he had “yelled at Hashem” at the gravesite.
Addressing the universe, Bowman wrote, “Please allow me to keep my calm, to remember to breathe, and to REMEMBER WHO I COME FROM.”
Two days later, he sought to gain entry into his former school, shortly after making his last Facebook post: “Gots time on my hands . ‘Home’ Court Visit.” Within hours, he was critically wounded.
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The post Suspect in Memphis Jewish school shooting was present when police shot and killed his father in 2003 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.