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‘Never felt a pain quite like this’: Jews react to Texas school shooting

With 21 people dead, including 19 children, Tuesday’s mass shooting was the worst at a school since the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012

The deadliest mass shooting this year happened in Texas on Tuesday, when a lone teenage gunman killed 21 people, including 19 children, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, a small city 80 miles west of San Antonio. This is the 27th school shooting this year that has resulted in injuries or death, according to Education Week. Jewish figures were among those who expressed their pain and outrage in statements and on social media.

Rabbi Sharon Brous, Los Angeles

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California

Alex Goldstein, creator of FacesOfCOVID, a Twitter account that memorializes those who died of the virus

Poet Roya Hakakian

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, Tree of Life Synagogue, Pittsnburgh

Molly Tolsky, editor of Alma

The Rabbinical Assembly, the international association for Conservative/Masorti rabbis

“It is high time that United States politicians, currently obsessed with reelection campaigns, put aside partisanship in order literally to save lives. They must firmly and immediately enact meaningful gun reform legislation. The same with mental health reform.”

Journalist Mairav Zonszein

Union for Reform Judaism
“There are no words left to describe the pain and horror of yet another school shooting. 21 lives cut short. The rage and heartbreak of living in a society that repeatedly permits the destruction of life. God forgive this country for loving guns more than children.”
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California
Rabbi Mark Asher Goodman, Erie, Pennsylvania

National Council of Jewish Women

“We’re reeling this morning after yesterday’s horrific shooting in Uvalde, Texas. We’ve waited too long for Congress to pass public safety legislation that will reduce gun violence & save lives. Call your senators. Demand a vote on the House-passed bills:ncjw.org/guns

Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky, Los Angeles

“The prudent are struck silent in such times, for the times are evil. (Amos, 5:13)

How does it end?

To whom shall we raise our voice?

Our love, from our broken hearts, to the people of Uvalde, Texas”

Yeshiva University

Temple Beth Am and Pressman Academy

“Once again, headlines rip through our hearts. Once again, bullets rip through a school. Once again, parents wake their children up in the morning, give them breakfast, drive them to school, which should be their safest place, kiss them goodbye, and assume that in a few hours they will embrace them back… only to be met with unspeakable tragedy. Once again, funerals will replace after-school activities. And once again our national illness, in which we have become inured to the true horror of almost expecting the next school-shooting headline, has expressed its rueful claim over our national identity and culture. We have become, inexplicably and indefensibly, a nation of murders at schools. This is a source of profound shame and dishonor, and bespeaks something terribly broken about our society.”

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