We are all connected, and our hearts are broken. As the tragic news poured out of Pittsburgh on Saturday morning, many Jews in Los Angeles spoke of their own close ties to the Tree of Life Synagogue, where 11 people were murdered during a Shabbat morning service by a gunman spewing anti-Semitic hatred. We see ourselves and our loved ones in the lost lives, we imagine the pain of their families and friends, and we feel it as our own.
The 11 dead and many more wounded brought home once again how powerful a lone gunman filled with false conspiracy theories can become. In the wake of this terrorist’s violence we hurt, and we want to respond.
We do so, once again, by refusing to stand idly by. Our power is to not succumb to his hatred, which extends far beyond the Jewish people. This gunman reviled those who help immigrants and strangers. He singled out our partner organization HIAS for their work with refugee resettlement in the United States, noble work whose motivation we share in our goal to combat the crisis of displacement worldwide. We counter his hatred by extending our love not only to those close to home, but also to all vulnerable innocents who are targets of discrimination and violence.
Jewish World Watch was founded in 2004 as an answer to pain, specifically the mass slaughter and displacement of the Darfuris in Sudan, a genocide that our founders, Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis z”l and Janice Kamenir-Reznik saw as a Jewish call-to-action. “We are responsible to protect each other, to love and protect the stranger, the pariah, the weak, those of another color, those of another faith. … ‘Lay not your hands upon the innocent. Do not do anything to harm them, for they are God’s children,’ ” Rabbi Schulweis wrote in his founding sermon. Could he have known how much those words would resonate again, in these dark days, to reflect the need to protect the innocents within our own country, our own community, as well?
What do we do in the wake of this? We will persist in our belief in the responsibility to protect not just our own, but also the other. On Sunday, a large crowd of all faiths gathered at the Federal Building in Westwood, solemnly raising lit candles in a vigil to commemorate the stolen lives. We all stood together to extend our solidarity to those who are hurting, and to display our unity and defiance to those who feel it is their right to speak hatred toward us – toward anyone. Today, even as we consider how best to protect ourselves, we continue our fight to protect the stranger.
Jews know from a long history of persecution what pain and displacement feel like. Our losses throughout history, and just this past weekend, guide us to continue to extend a hand to the most vulnerable – both here and abroad. Our deep kinship with Pittsburgh propels our concern for the defenders of freedom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; for the Rohingya orphans and other survivors living precariously in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh; for the Darfuris who face rape and pillage if they leave their refugee camp. Even when we have proclaimed Never Again only to see hatred persist, we will fight to end genocide and mass atrocities by extending our hand, our support and our love to the needy, wherever they are.
We stand for the victims and for the survivors. We raise our voices to cry out that we will continue to do all we can for our brothers and sisters plagued by mass atrocities. We are all connected, so we cannot afford to stand idly by.