(JTA) – While America puzzles over the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, many American Jews are puzzling over an additional element: the religious identity of victim Nicholas Thalasinos.
Pictured on his Facebook page wearing a scarf-style tallit prayer shawl, Thalasinos, who was killed along with 13 others in Wednesday’s shooting at a center for people with disabilities, has been variously identified in media reports as a Jew, a Zionist and, in some cases, a messianic Jew.
Just two weeks ago, Thalasinos reportedly got into a heated argument about the nature of Islam with co-worker Syed Farook, whom authorities said perpetrated the horrific San Bernardino attack along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik. Investigators announced Friday that they were treating the attack as a terrorist act motivated by Islamic extremism. Both husband and wife were Muslim, and authorities said Malik had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a Facebook post.
