Rabbis Respond with Concern

Shoshana, a preschool teacher at the North Valley JCC, looked down a hallway into the barrel of Buford Furrow’s submachine gun. She had dodged a hail of bullets to duck into her classroom and safely usher out the 4- and 5-year-old preschoolers under her care.

Now, it was time to bench gomel, to recite the blessing thanking God after narrowly escaping with one’s life.

Like so many others, Shoshana (last name withheld upon request) turned to her synagogue, to her rabbi and community, to find solace and strength in the aftermath of last Tuesday’s shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center.

At Shoshana’s shul, Chabad of Northridge, and at synagogues across the North Valley and across Los Angeles, services last week were packed.

“I was asked repeatedly by the media if we intended to do anything special at our service, and our response was yes, the same special thing we do every Shabbat — come together for prayer and mutual support and community, to be restored by Shabbat and what the service and being with family always brings us,” said Rabbi Jerald Brown of Ahavat Shalom in Northridge, about two miles from the scene.

Among his 1,000 worshipers at the healing service Friday night were Mindy Finkelstein, the 16-year-old counselor who was shot in the leg, and the family of Joshua Stepakoff, six, one of the little boys shot.

They, along with police officers and politicians, joined congregants in an open discussion, giving expression to both the outrage and thanksgiving that welled up in the Jewish community last week.

Such discussions were taking place at synagogues across California, where even rabbis who never talk about politics or current events broke that rule this Shabbat.

But even with discussion of violent hate groups, and even with increased security at nearly every synagogue in Los Angeles, feelings of solidarity overwhelmed those of fear.

“There was such a feeling that we needed to be together,” says Rabbi Steven Tucker, whose Ramat Zion is about 1.5 miles from the JCC. “We started by holding hands and singing ‘Hinei Mah Tov’ and what a wonderful feeling that was.”

Tucker was among the dozens of rabbis mobilized as soon as the news broke last week.

Calls went out from the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, an affiliate agency of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, pulling rabbis out of committee meetings and bar mitzvah lessons, sending them to hospitals and other sites.

At Ahavat Shalom, Brown was on the way to a funeral when he heard. He dispatched his associate, Rabbi Debbi Till, to the JCC and then to the hospital, where one of his members was injured. Rabbi Barry Lutz stayed at the synagogue to deal with clearing out their own preschool and to field phone calls from distraught members, many of them JCC parents. A staff member placed a call to the JCC offices to offer help.

Tucker, who also went to area hospitals on Tuesday and to the JCC later in the week, deliberately stayed away from the site as the crisis was occurring. Like many other rabbis, he assumed that the last thing emergency personnel needed was more people to handle.

One rabbi whose presence was requested at the crime scene was Rabbi Lawrence Goldmark, interim executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, who arrived in the afternoon with other Jewish Federation officials.

He gave comfort to many parents and campers on site, counseled eyewitnesses, and opened the press conference with a prayer. Goldmark also attended the funeral of postal worker Joseph Ileto.

Rabbi E. Robert Kraus’s Temple Beth Torah, which is housed in the church right next door to NVJCC, received 150 emails of support from news watchers across the country, which he printed out and delivered to the JCC.

Around the city, preschoolers put crayon to construction paper to send words of support. Some shuls sent flowers to the JCC, some sent food, and many rabbis showed up at Friday afternoon’s Kabbalat Shabbat service at the JCC.

Nina Giladi, associate executive vice president of the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles, says the staff and children appreciate every card, poster and care package that comes in, that the string of storytellers, songleaders and dance teachers have done much for the center’s spirit.

“When my staff hears somebody say, ‘Wow, you did an amazing job, you were unbelievable the way you took care of the children at such a critical time,’ nothing means more than that,” she said.

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Following the North Valley JCC shooting, meetings, a Sunday rally and expressions of support help the community heal.