San Diego Synagogue Rabbi: ‘Today Should Have Been My Funeral’

Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein of the Chabad of Poway wrote in an April 29 New York Times op-ed that “today should have been my funeral” after surviving the April 27 shooting.

The shooting, which occurred at around 11:30 a.m., was allegedly conducted by 19-year-old John Earnest, targeting congregants who were celebrating the last day of Passover. Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, was killed in the shooting and three others were wounded.

Goldstein wrote in the op-ed that he heard a “bang!” as he was getting ready to deliver his sermon, prompting him to go to lobby where he found Gilbert-Kaye “bleeding on the ground” with the alleged shooter standing over her.

“He was standing there with a big rifle in his hands,” Goldstein wrote. “And he was now aiming it at me. For one reason: I am a Jew.”

Goldstein added that the alleged shooter began firing at him, striking both of his index fingers. Goldstein’s fight-or-flight response kicked in, screaming that the congregants needed to evacuate the premises as soon as possible.

The shooter’s gun suddenly “jammed,” Goldstein wrote, providing off-duty Border Patrol agent Jonathan Morales and Army veteran Oscar Stewart an opportunity to run toward the shooter, prompting the shooter to run away from the synagogue.

“I do not know why God spared my life. I do not know why I had to witness scenes of a pogrom in San Diego County like the ones my grandparents experienced in Poland,” Goldstein wrote. “I don’t know why a part of my body was taken away from me. I don’t know why I had to see my good friend, a woman who embodied the Jewish value of hesed (kindness), hunted in her house of worship. I don’t know why I had to watch Lori’s beloved husband, a doctor, faint as he tried to resuscitate her. And then their only daughter, Hannah, sob in agony as she encountered both her parents collapsed on the floor.”

Goldstein concluded his op-ed by stating that he was going to use his “borrowed time” to become more “brazen” about his Jewish identity and encouraging others to do the same.

“We are a people divinely commanded to bring God’s light into the world,” Goldstein wrote. “So it is with this country. America is unique in world history. Never before was a country founded on the ideals that all people are created in God’s image and that all people deserve freedom and liberty. We fought a war to make that promise real. And I believe we can make it real again.”

In an April 28 press conference, Goldstein said that “a lot of light will push away” the darkness in the world.

“We all need to teach everyone, we need to do random acts of kindness, we need to tilt the scale,” Goldstein said. “There’s so much darkness now in the world but you and I have the ability to change.”