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In the days of a gunman killed 11 people inside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday, they have been forced to answer tough questions from their grieving congregations as they help their communities with such horrific attacks.
Some of the questions from children and young people have included an element of disbelief at what happened. College students have been asking Rabbi Shlomo Agishtein from Stony Brook, N.Y., how people could hate Jews this much.
We asked them how they and their congregations reacted to Saturday's massacre, and dozens responded.
Security during services has been a central concern, with many rabbis telling them their chief question is whether to arm their security officers.
Here is a selection of the answers, which has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Answering children's questions about hate and violence
I work with a lot of preteens who are preparing for their bar or bat mitzvah. They do not understand why people hate Jewish people. They are scared about the security and safety situation at synagogues, Jewish summer camps and Jewish community centers. I have been trying to calm their fears and encourage them to feel pride for being part of the Jewish community.
– Rabbi Jason Miller, B'nai Israel Congregation, Toledo, Ohio (Conservative)
Yesterday morning, while driving a few third and fourth graders from our Beth Israel Congregation, along with my older sounds, I listened to their conversation. One of the children mentioned in the Pittsburgh Synagogue.
Though I wanted to immediately interject, I remembered to be educated in our community, and I allowed to talk to carry on. One of the children in the car wanted to know how many people were killed. Another child answered that it was 11 people.
A third child noted that this man was like Haman [the Prime Minister of Persia who, in the story of Purim, tried to kill all the Jews in the kingdom]. Haman has failed to kill anyone, and this person succeeded.
Another child made a joke about the murderer and what he would do to him (laughter).
At that moment, I was thankful for our children's resilience and felt deeply appreciative of the depth of our understanding of the world.
– Rabbi Yonatan Cohen, Beth Israel Congregation, Berkeley, Calif.
I listened, affirmed and reassured.
– Rabbi Amy Loewenthal, Ahavas Achim Congregation, Keene, N.H. (Reconstructionist)
As a rabbi who educates and counsels teenagers, I think it is vitally important to balance two messages. The first message is that it is very difficult to have a hate of the hate of the "other" and have access to military-grade weapons. Jewish teens in my community in New Jersey and across the U.S. feel a direct connection between Parkland and Pittsburgh.
The second message is that of our response, from the first responder to the next, who gives us comfort and support, gives us a glimpse of the world that we want to create.
– Rabbi Daniel Brenner, chief of education and programming for Moving Traditions, mentoring program for Jewish teens, Montclair, N.J.
I held a session with my bar / bat mitzvah students about the tragedy in Pittsburgh. I want them to understand that we can not do anything. We talked about the outpouring of support that brought us together across the lines of difference after the massacre. Mostly I listened to the children.
– Rabbi Julie Greenberg, Leyv Ha-Ir ~ Heart of the City, Philadelphia
Finding the right words as a leader
My synagogue community – many of whom are older, many of whom have come from where institutionalized anti-Semitism was prevalent in their lifetimes – are dealing with this as a crisis of faith. Their trauma revolves around the question, How could a god, on the holiest day of the week, in the holiest place in our communities, allow this to happen?
But for the younger, college-aged kids, the shock is more along the lines of, How can people hate me this much? – a reality not foreign to older Jews. So dealing with the theological issues of the community and the culture of the school has a difficult balance.
I will discuss this in my sermon and in our newsletter. I want to give you a room to grow from this tragedy, not stoop. We will be looking into security, but I am afraid of showing fear in the place of pride.
– Rabbi Shlomo Agishtein, Stony Brook Hebrew Congregation, Stony Brook, N.Y. (Orthodox)
There are so many things to do since Pittsburgh. This is providing succor for children, helping parents make up their children.
Then there is the dilemma of security: what kind, how many, what hours – then there are many synagogues in the Boston area.
We did a service of remembrance last night with evocative melodies and some poetry. We also said Kaddish for the deceased.
– Rabbi Keith Stern, Beth Avodah Temple, Newton, Mass. (Reform)
As a Jewish jail chaplain, I have been heartened by both officers and inmates expressing their sympathies after the horrific events of last Shabbat. I also took the opportunity to speak with the Jewish inmates and give them a space to express their feelings and concerns.
– Rabbi Gabriel Kretzmer-Seed, New York
We believe in encouraging participation in the community and the interfaith program, as well as bringing a non-Jewish friend with them to the synagogue. On CBC Radio, I encouraged non-Jews to ask a Jewish friend to bring them to synagogue this Shabbat.
The local Muslim community will form Rings of Peace as a number of synagogues, as Jews did following the shooting in Quebec City mosque. I will certainly devote my sermon this week to the need to mourn and bury our dead, then go on to build a future life.
– Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl, Senior Rabbi, Beth Tzedec Congregation, Toronto (Conservative)
A sense of safety shattered
For the first time in my life, we are in the process of hiring armed guards to be on Fridays and Saturdays during Shabbat. It is devastating that this is where we are. But our members are panic-stricken and it feels necessary. Our sense of safety has truly been shattered.
Today we will gather our sixth and sixth graders for a discussion of what happened and for a ritual to memorialize those who died. We will talk with them about safety and security.
– Rabbi Allison Berry, Shalom Temple, Newton, Mass. (Reform)
We have additional patrols from local law enforcement. We have been in communication with our security firm. We are scheduling additional training for our ushers and greeters.
– Rabbi Avi Friedman, Ohr Shalom Congregation, Summit, N.J. (Conservative)
Last summer, every time you get locked in and out of the building when it is locked during the week. We will be holding a security meeting and drill, which was scheduled long before this past weekend, this coming week. Security has been part of our reality for a while, and unfortunately this focus is not new to us.
– Hazzan Joanna Selznick Dulkin, Adath Jeshurun, Minnetonka, Minn. (Conservative)
Fortunately for my congregation, we were proactive. We initiated a $ 95 fee for every day of this week.
– Rabbi Jeremy Schneider, Kol Ami Temple, Scottsdale, Ariz. (Reform)
A friend who is also a colleague asked me if I was a therapist because he noticed I've been so down. "If you're going to lead your people through this, you've got O.K.," he said.
We will have the police patrolling (no security officers on the street, it's not the message we want to send). Plus, many if not most of my congress have conceal-carry permits. We meet with the F.B.I. next week.
– Rabbi Rachael Bregman, Beth Tefilloh Temple, Brunswick, Ga. (Reform)
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