Vice President Mike Pence Visits Poway Synagogue
Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein blesses Vice President Mike Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence at the Chabad of Poway on July 10, 2019. Image by Twitter
(JTA) — Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen visited the Poway Chabad synagogue where a far-right shooter killed one congregant and wounded three others in April.
“We had to come,” Pence told Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who was one of those injured in the attack. Before putting on a kippah and entering the synagogue near San Diego, Pence hugged the rabbi.
Goldstein blessed the couple on the sanctuary’s stage.
“Karen & I were honored to stop by the Chabad of Poway, the site of a terrible shooting in April. To Rabbi Goldstein—your faith & courage is an inspiration to the nation. No one should fear in a house of worship. We will always condemn evil acts of antisemitism. We are with you!,” Pence wrote on Twitter.
“To me there was a very short moment of darkness. That darkness was pushed out of here,” the rabbi said. “God was really protecting us.”
Pence told Goldstein: “Your faith and courage are an inspiration to the nation.”
The vice president was in California on a visit of two Navy bases in San Diego.
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