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.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
