This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/02/us/shabbat-pittsburgh-shooting.html

The article has changed 7 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
On the First Shabbat After Pittsburgh Attack, ‘We’re Here to Be Jewish Together’ On the First Shabbat After Pittsburgh Attack, ‘We’re Here to Be Jewish Together’
(35 minutes later)
PITTSBURGH — As the sun went down on Friday, they walked into synagogues across the country in solidarity and in grief. Some carried prayer books. Some carried their children. Others carried the memories of friends who had been slaughtered nearly a week earlier in a gunman’s hate-filled rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue.PITTSBURGH — As the sun went down on Friday, they walked into synagogues across the country in solidarity and in grief. Some carried prayer books. Some carried their children. Others carried the memories of friends who had been slaughtered nearly a week earlier in a gunman’s hate-filled rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue.
Some were Jews with a strict practice of religious observance. Others typically set foot inside a synagogue only once or twice a year. There were Christians and Muslims, political dignitaries and Hollywood stars, greeting one another with a “Shabbat Shalom” that on this first Sabbath since the killings felt less like a friendly greeting than a plea for a shattered peace. Some were Jews with a strict practice of religious observance. Others set foot inside a synagogue only once or twice a year. There were Christians and Muslims, political dignitaries and Hollywood stars, greeting one another with a “Shabbat Shalom” that on this first Sabbath since the killings felt less like the usual friendly greeting than a plea for a shattered peace.
“We’re all one family, not just 11 families grieving,” Dr. Mitchell Antin, a regular congregant at Congregation Beth Shalom in Pittsburgh, which was holding regular services as well as private services for two of the congregations at the Tree of Life, where 11 people were killed. “We are all grieving.” “We are all grieving,” Dr. Mitchell Antin, a regular congregant at Congregation Beth Shalom in Pittsburgh, which was holding regular services as well as private services for two of the congregations at the Tree of Life, where 11 people were killed.
So it went: Candles were lit, songs were sung, and rabbis and congregants spoke about finding healing in community, about finding hope in grief and about the fears that now loom over the simple practice of faith. These are scenes from their Shabbats.
At the Rodef Shalom congregation in Pittsburgh, where three funerals were held over the past week, people fell into weary hugs in the lobby and greeted newcomers.At the Rodef Shalom congregation in Pittsburgh, where three funerals were held over the past week, people fell into weary hugs in the lobby and greeted newcomers.
“Have you been to a Jewish service before?” an older woman asked one of the many women at the service who were wearing hijabs.“Have you been to a Jewish service before?” an older woman asked one of the many women at the service who were wearing hijabs.
Shabbat candles were lit, songs were sung, and the rabbi spoke of how much “we need one another.” The leader of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh received a standing ovation, as did Joanne Rogers, the widow of the children’s television host Fred Rogers, whose neighborhood, after all, was Squirrel Hill. The leader of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh received a standing ovation, as did Joanne Rogers, the widow of the children’s television host Fred Rogers, whose neighborhood, after all, was Squirrel Hill.
“It’s been confusing for me; I’ve been frightened,” Mrs. Rogers told the congregation. “I have had trouble dealing with the fact that this happened, but I don’t want to give credit to the fact that it happened.“It’s been confusing for me; I’ve been frightened,” Mrs. Rogers told the congregation. “I have had trouble dealing with the fact that this happened, but I don’t want to give credit to the fact that it happened.
“I want to tell you how wonderful you are,” she said. “How beautiful you are. I love you.”“I want to tell you how wonderful you are,” she said. “How beautiful you are. I love you.”
As the cantor sang, a smaller, private service was taking place nearby in Levy Hall for members of the Tree of Life congregation, whose synagogue was now a crime scene and whose membership was now seven fewer. It was holding its first Shabbat service since last Saturday.As the cantor sang, a smaller, private service was taking place nearby in Levy Hall for members of the Tree of Life congregation, whose synagogue was now a crime scene and whose membership was now seven fewer. It was holding its first Shabbat service since last Saturday.
David Harris, the chief executive of the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group that started the hashtag #ShowUpForShabbat earlier this week, said that millions of people all over the world had pledged to attend services on Friday night or Saturday morning. “I do not ordinarily go to Friday night services,” said Marcia Stewart, 87, a member of Tree of Life for four decades. When she goes to Saturday service, she usually shows up late. That’s what happened last Saturday, and it probably saved her life. That is in part why she felt obligated to go tonight.
“It’s grief, it’s solidarity, it’s anger, all that is motivating people,” Mr. Harris added. “Once you get beyond thoughts and prayers, here’s something tangible you could do: show up.” “They were there Saturday,” she said of the dead. “And I was not.”
Mr. Harris said he was taking four European ambassadors with him Friday night to Temple Israel on the Upper East Side in New York. She had spent this past week at funerals for people she had been having lunch with not a month ago. Irv Younger. Bernice Simon. Rose Mallinger, whose funeral she had attended earlier on Friday at Rodef Shalom.
In Pittsburgh, hundreds of people attended Friday night services at Rodef Shalom, the stately synagogue that hosted three funerals this week for four victims of the shooting. The Israeli consul general from New York and Wasi Mohamed, executive director of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, were both expected. Just a few feet away, the Tree of Life congregation held Friday night prayer service in a small chapel inside the Rodef Shalom building. The services, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers said, were only for its members. At that funeral the rabbi had talked of still being here, “not ready to disappear yet,” she said.
At Congregation Beth Shalom, which sits just a half-mile from the scene of the massacre, Rabbi Amy Bardack, who was leading the main service, said that the entire Squirrel Hill community was still incredibly traumatized. She crafted a message that focused on the value of finding strength and comfort in just being together. That is another reason she felt she needed be there on Friday. “Tree of Life needs to be there together again,” she said, “or we will lose our identity.” — Campbell Robertson
“Now is our time to just be,” Rabbi Bardack said. “We’re here to be Jewish together. We’re going to reclaim our sacred spaces.” At Temple Emanuel in Newton, Mass., a conservative synagogue in a leafy suburb of Boston, congregants arrived under a drizzling rain, awash in sadness, fear and anger.
Synagogues across the country — in Chicago, Denver, Boston — welcomed visitors. “We just weren’t the ones who happened to be shot, but we feel like it happened to everyone here,” said Sheldon Rowdan, 45, who came with his wife and two children. He described Newton as a family-centered community that felt similar to Squirrel Hill.
“Everyone is going to come to shul, and I don’t say that lightly,” said Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the chief executive of the Conservative movement’s rabbinical organization. He said that he had been thinking about his grandparents, who were Holocaust survivors. “They had always said, ‘It’s going to happen again — don’t ever feel complacent,’” he said. “I think in the United States people did get complacent. They did kind of feel like it wouldn’t happen here.”
Her organization held a conference call with rabbis across the country on Thursday to help them prepare for Friday night. She said she hoped the message they give would be more focused on mourning than security planning. Linda Gelda, 64, said she had come to services on Friday full of emotions.
“We’re trying to connect people to their own grief,” Rabbi Schonfeld said. “People are very fundamentally shaken as Jews, and they need a way to connect to their highest selves as Jews.” “I’m partly here out of outrage,” she said. “I feel like it’s one thing I can do. It protects against a feeling of despair and helplessness.”
She had texted one of her colleagues in Pittsburgh after the attack, and she said he texted back: “Everything is going to change now.” Several people who were not Jewish said they had come to show solidarity with Jewish friends. Heather Neal, 39, said she had heard about the #ShowUpforShabbat campaign organized by the American Jewish Committee to encourage Jews and non-Jews alike to attend services on Friday. She decided to bring her daughter, Victoria, 4.
She added: “I keep thinking about that. Tragically, this is a watershed moment” for American Judaism. “We’ve never been attacked this way on American soil.” By 6:30, when the service for families started, there were several hundred people in the sanctuary, greeting one another with hugs and kisses. The rabbi, Michelle S. Robinson, made only brief allusions to the tragedy in Pittsburgh; the synagogue’s main Shabbat service is Saturday morning, and Senator Elizabeth Warren was set to come and deliver a prayer.
Hundreds of worshipers were expected to show up for rooftop prayer services at IKAR, a nondenominational congregation in Los Angeles, where blessings would also be offered by Muslim and Protestant religious leaders. “Each of you who made the choice to come here tonight, to stand together, to pray together, are angels of peace,” Rabbi Robinson said. “Let us raise our voices against the darkness.” — Kate Taylor
“There is a need for people to be together and be together in prayer,” said Rabbi Sharon Brous, who expected twice as many worshipers as usual. “Prayer is an act of protest of the world as it is and sense of yearning of what it could be.” At the Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan, a new poster on the table that announces coming events offered a quiet signal of a changed world. It showed pictures of the 11 Pittsburgh victims.
There would be singing, as there always is, she said, but there would also be time set aside for people to speak with each other about their own feelings after a week that “really upended our sense of stability and security in this country.” “It’s unspeakably terrible and sad,” said Gideon Schor, who has been a member of Lincoln Square, a modern Orthodox synagogue on the Upper West Side, for more than 20 years.
Rabbi Brous, a liberal activist who frequently speaks about politics from the pulpit, said she had spent much of the week reading the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s remarks after the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, looking for guidance on what to tell her own congregation. But as people gathered, many said the events in Pittsburgh would not disrupt their Sabbath.
“If you fuel hatred and create a culture where people have easy access to guns, eventually that hatred turns deadly,” she said. “That’s something I think we need to speak about very clearly. We have to create a space for both healing and for moral outrage that will lead to action.” “Nothing will prevent me from coming,” said Mr. Schor, 54, who attends synagogue daily.
At Temple Sinai, a large Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles, the message was to be less political: Roughly half the congregants support President Trump, said Rabbi David Wolpe. He added: “Our strength comes from daily unity. We draw additional strength from each other in challenging times.”
“I’m going to say that if you have an objection of the rhetoric on the one side, you have to be willing to criticize the other side,” he said. “I always get people who want me to scream at the other side, and I want to tell them: Please yell at your own side. When I started in the rabbinate 30 years ago, I thought anti-Semitism was my father’s issue, but it’s not going to be mine. And now I am heartbroken this is a serious problem in our country.” Rabbi Shaul Robinson, the senior rabbi, said he spent much of this week in conversations about how to enhance security. Though he would not divulge what additional preparations the temple had made, he said he had heard from many Jews who were even more committed to “to show up for Shabbat.”
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, which represents the largest stream in American Judaism with about 900 congregations, said that a lot of people had asked him whether this moment would prove to be like Germany in the 1930s, when anti-Semitism began to break through the veneer of acceptance. “It is absolutely a sign that we will not be cowed or intimated or too frightened to walk into a Jewish building,” Rabbi Robinson said. — Tyler Pager
“I think this is not that moment,” Rabbi Jacobs said. “There was not a wide interfaith community that stood with us and marched in the streets. What we have here is unprecedented — the solidarity of the faith communities, the Muslims, the Christians, the Buddhists, the Sikhs.
“This is a deeper kind of security,” he added. “A security that comes from building an interconnected community that shows up for one another.”
When Jewish cemeteries were desecrated in Philadelphia and St. Louis, he said, Muslims raised money to repair them. And it goes both ways. In Canada, after a mosque was attacked by a gunman in Quebec City, Jews organized human chains to surround mosques across the country in “rings of peace.” Friday night, he said, Muslims and Christians will form human chains around synagogues in Toronto.