‘Never felt a pain quite like this’: Jews react to Texas school shooting
A child holds roses outside the Willie de Leon Civic Center in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday May 26, 2022. Photo by Eric Thayer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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
For God's sake stop saying the gunman acted alone. He acted with every Republican Senator and at least one Democrat, who feverishly block all attempts at gun violence prevention.
— Rabbi Sharon Brous (@SharonBrous) May 25, 2022
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California
Another day, another mass shooting, and more silence from the gun lobby and Republicans who refuse to allow any gun safety reforms to occur. Reports that 14 elementary school students and a teacher have been murdered are beyond tragic.
— Senator Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) May 24, 2022
Alex Goldstein, creator of FacesOfCOVID, a Twitter account that memorializes those who died of the virus
We will be suspending our regular posts for the day today to share the names and faces of those murdered in Texas and Buffalo over the last 10 days.
— FacesOfCOVID (@FacesOfCOVID) May 25, 2022
We cannot and will not make it easy for our "leaders" to look away. -- Alex
Poet Roya Hakakian
Everything that’s beautiful about America pales against the backdrop of the constant killings. Everything. Our violence is disfiguring us. ##texasmassacre
— Roya Hakakian (@RoyaTheWriter) May 24, 2022
Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, Tree of Life Synagogue, Pittsnburgh
“Each morning for the past three and a half years, I’ve begun my day in prayer, reading Psalm 121: ‘I lift my eyes to the heavens; from where shall my help come? My help comes from God, Maker of the heavens and the earth.’ This morning, as I lifted my eyes, tears fell. The pain of surviving the attack here in Pittsburgh once again feels fresh in my mind after yesterday’s horrific massacre at an elementary school. I readied myself to question God, ‘Why?’ But God returned my question, ‘why?’ Today we mourn with the families and friends of 19 beautiful children and 2 educators. May their memories be a blessing. We offer prayers of comfort and healing for the children who are now forever changed by what they witnessed. And tomorrow, we must all return to and wrestle with God’s question for us: ‘why?’”
U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-New York
We are 144 days into the year and there have been over 200 mass shootings. This epidemic is so bad that if we didn’t talk about preventing gun violence after tragedy, we would never talk about it.
— Rep. Nadler (@RepJerryNadler) May 25, 2022
As public servants we have a duty to speak out and fight to end this madness. https://t.co/dmxEQmBwTm
Molly Tolsky, editor of Alma
I did my best to prepare for parenthood but nothing could prepare me for the moment when, holding my newborn daughter in my arms, I picked up my phone to see that 14 children were murdered in their school. Have never felt a pain quite like this.
— Molly Tolsky (@mollytolsky) May 24, 2022
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
I just gave birth to my second son. My first was born during Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza. While breastfeeding last night, I see that a kid entered a Texas school and killed 15 children. Just incomprehensible. I cry and cry, as I bring new life into such a violent world.
— Mairav Zonszein מרב זונשיין (@MairavZ) May 25, 2022
Imagine how many children wouldn’t be slaughtered in school if being pro-life was more than just a talking point for Republicans in Congress.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) May 25, 2022
In Judaism, if you say a prayer over something, then fail to do the requisite action that follows, like blessing bread and not eating it, it’s a bracha levatla - which is a sinful act.
— Rabbi Mark Asher Goodman (@RabbiMarkAsherG) May 25, 2022
If you pray for victims of gun violence but do nothing, it is a sinful act.
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
— Yeshiva University (@YUNews) May 25, 2022
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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