Pittsfield — Let the healing begin, but do not give up the fight for justice after the recent Pittsburgh synagogue massacre and other deadly attacks motivated by hate.
That was the message many hundreds of people heard last night at an interfaith community vigil organized by the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires at Knesset Israel.
Officials estimated about 1,000 people showed up for the event, more than could fit into the synagogue on Colt Road. So those who were turned away staged their own vigil around the corner at the South Street Memorial Park. Police told The Edge at least 250 vehicles entered the synagogue’s parking lot, with another hundred or so parked on nearby streets.
See Edge video below of the entire vigil at Knesset Israel:
“We are gathering quite deliberately in a Jewish sanctuary,” said Rabbi David Weiner of Knesset Israel. “We are doing this because, whenever a sanctuary is violated, every sanctuary of every faith is compromised.”
In keeping with the ecumenical focus of the event, several leaders of other faiths also spoke, including a Baptist minister and Muslim imam. Music was provided by the Berkshire Jewish Musicians Collective and the Williams College Gospel Choir. Click here to view the program, which also lists the 11 fallen members of the Pittsburgh congregation.
Political leaders present included Pittsfield Mayor Linda Tyer, Reps. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, D-Pittsfield, and John Barrett III, D-North Adams, and Sen. Adam Hinds, D-Pittsfield. Hinds observed that, after the Pittsburgh attack, many had wondered how it could have happened.
“We’ve been turning to the unseen, looking for a purpose,” Hinds said. “And I, for one, have been working to find peace in the possibility that those who died will spark a national reflection.”
Hinds is not Jewish but worked for the United Nations for almost 10 years in the Middle East, including a two-year stint in Jerusalem as a regional advisor to the U.N. on the Middle East peace process.
In a not-so-subtle jab at hate groups and President Donald Trump, Hinds added: “Maybe the wider public will recognize that words have consequences. You cannot vilify and dehumanize others. We have seen the consequences that it brings now and in our past. We will not let someone blinded by hate change our love and respect for one another.”
Rev. Sheila Sholes-Ross of the First Baptist Church of Pittsfield read pertinent passages from 2 Corinthians in the New Testament and asked the audience if they were “ready to promote justice.”
The response was tepid, so she continued: “Okay, because that’s not rhetorical and I think we can do better than that.” Eliciting laughter, she asked the question a second time and the audience responded with a chorus of “Yes!”
Sholes-Ross cautioned her listeners not to forget other recent violent and hate-motivated crimes after the glare of the cameras has receded. Sholes-Ross pointed to a violent attack this week—a white man who allegedly gunned down and killed two black men in a Louisville, Kentucky, Kroger’s after a failed attempt to barge into a predominantly African-American church.
Channeling the good will shown by other Muslims in the wake of the recent killing of Jews, Imam Sharif Rosen of Williams College spoke of the “horrific anti-Semitic atrocity in Pittsburgh.”
“We hold in our memories those murdered,” the imam said. “Words fail in conveying our incomprehension, and in seeing our nation’s freefall into a self-inflicted destruction that may be without precedent.”
But the most powerful words of the evening might have come from Talia Ben Sasson-Gordis, senior associate regional director at the Anti-Defamation League in Boston: “The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference.”
There was also a reading of Psalm 23 by Rev. Joel Huntington of the South Congregational Church and Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch of Temple Anshe Amunim, another synagogue a couple of blocks away.
Huntington characterized Psalm 23 as saying “we are not alone … We are embraced by a shepherd; we are embraced by love—and that love, that shepherd has brought us here tonight.”
South County was represented by two members of Hevreh of Southern Berkshire: Rabbi Jodie Gordon led the candle lighting and memorial prayers, while Rabbi Neil P.G. Hirsch gave the benediction. Hirsch asked audience members to turn to a stranger next to them and introduce themselves and “hold one another with gratitude” in order “that we can turn strangers into neighbors so that we can truly be one community.”
“We have come together this evening to seek meaning beyond our limited selves,” Hirsch said. “Having encountered hate and bigotry, we have come together to stand up, to say no, to seek a spirit that binds together the common thread of our humanity.”
Along with Rabbi Barbara Cohen of Ahavath Sholom in Great Barrington, Gordon read aloud the names of the 11 victims at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. At various times during the vigil, men, women and children held hands and hugged each other.
The seven-member Williams College Gospel Choir gave a rousing rendition of “This Little Light of Mine.” To watch the performance, see the video above and fast-forward to 50:00.
