Shooting in Pittsburgh: How Orthodox Jews learned tragedy

On Saturday night, 26-year-old Tova Morrison was preparing for the Havdalah when all the digital lines of her household were cut off.

For orthodox Jews, from sunset to Friday night to Saturday night, the phones are silenced, the computers are off and the television is off.

In Jewish tradition, the brief ceremony of Havdalah marks the end of the Sabbath and constitutes a symbolic division between the holiness of the day and the hectic secular world.

His family recited the Havdalah prayer as the sky darkened, "Behold, God is my savior, I will trust God and I will not be afraid because my strong faith and my song of praise for God will be my salvation. "

During those last moments of peace, Morrison's biggest concern at the time was to keep his 14-month-old daughter away from the gently flashing candles lit as part of the ceremony.

And then her husband, 27-year-old Shaul Yaakov, turned on her phone and learned for the first time the deadliest attack on Jews in US history – hours after that happened.

"He was checking his phone quickly to see if he had any professional emails," said Morrison, of Fairlawn, New Jersey. But then he said, "Something terrible has happened. "

[For American Jews, Pittsburgh synagogue massacre is culmination of worst fears]

That morning, a man stormed the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, a semi-automatic rifle, and killed 11 worshipers during Shabbat worship, wounding six others in an outburst followed by a riot. a shooting with the police.

Many Orthodox Jews were first informed on Facebook or by members of their family who had turned on their television. Others discovered in their synagogues where the news was widespread among those who had chosen to use their devices or worshipers who had learned shooting by the vine.

This was a second wave of grief and delayed mourning for the country's Jewish communities, a connected nation that has been following developments since Saturday morning.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner, New York Times reporter wrote on Twitter: "It is unbearable to watch Jewish observers log in and absorb the news."

The alleged gunman, Robert D. Bowers, aged 46, has been charged with 29 counts of violent crimes and firearms offenses, state prosecutors announced Saturday night. Bowers reportedly carried several handguns and allegedly shouted anti-Semitic statements before opening fire, witnesses said later.

"I heard the news when I was talking to my in-laws after Shabbat," said Gabi Moskowitz, 28, who lives in New York. "Then my husband, Will, and I went online to learn more about it. It's beyond horrible, and my friends from Pittsburgh just seemed upset, even if their family was not affected. "

[Suspected synagogue shooter appears to have railed against Jews, refugees online]

Alexander Denker, PhD candidate in Atlanta, tried to avoid using his phone. But a flood of alerts raised his concerns. "I leave my phone on as an alarm near my bed on the Sabbath. I kept hearing from the other side of the room, so I went to see why the phone was not leaving and there was a whole series of news alerts, "he said. declared.

"All I saw was an alert saying that suspected gunmen would have fired at least eight people identified in the Pittsburgh synagogue …", and then my screen went out. "

Unable to manually turn on his phone to find out more, Denker had to wait for his arrival at his synagogue to learn more from other worshipers.

"The shooting was only publicly announced after the Shabbat for those who had not heard it yet," Denker said. "The rabbi decided that it was better for people to hear naturally, but he also did not want to bother or disturb anyone on Shabbat."

A year of massacres and terrorist incidents has left Morrison feeling struck by the news that even a weekly digital cleanup of Shabbat can not hold back.

"So many bad things have happened this year, it's not possible to treat emotionally just as we should," Morrison said.

After the initial shock, she strove to prepare her daughter, who was too young to realize what was happening, ready to go to bed. She had planned to recite psalms in mourning for the dead.

"I would like it to be the opposite," she said. "There were so many good things going on that I got fed up with them. I wish there was too much good. "

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