Washington University students arrived at Hillel Friday night, less than a week after the fatal shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, just as they would any other Shabbat, excited to join their friends in prayer and a good meal. However, a few things were different.
Students, faculty and administrators gathered outside of Francis Olympic Stadium to show support for the victims of Saturday’s shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Wednesday, Oct. 30.
The time to demand more from the Jewish community is not while we are still burying those that were killed. The time to make criticisms over what is being posted on social media is not now.
I recently wrote an article titled “On the Pittsburg shooting: These are not isolated incidents,” which has gained a lot of controversy because of how I phrased my point. I want to clarify some of what I said, as many have perceived what I was saying in a way in which I did not intend.
I applaud the authors of these articles for speaking to these truths. Yet, to me, there are a couple of pieces that these Student Life articles got utterly, fundamentally wrong.
This past Saturday morning, in Hillel’s egalitarian minyan (prayer service), when we returned the Torah scroll to the ark, as we do each week, we chanted together, “[the Torah] is a tree of life for those who hold fast to it.”
Chancellor Mark Wrighton released a statement to the Washington University student body in an email later that afternoon. Twenty-two percent of the student body identifies as Jewish, according estimates by Hillel. In his statement, Wrighton directly characterized the attack as one driven by hate.
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