Akron community mourns victims of Tree of Life Congregation

ALYSSA SCHMITT | STAFF REPORTER aschmitt@cjn.org | @AlyssaSchmitCJN

More than 500 Jews and non-Jews filled the auditorium at the Schultz Campus for Jewish life in Akron Nov. 1 for a community vigil to remember the 11 victims who died five days earlier after gunshots shattered Shabbat at Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh.

“We are here today because our world is too dark,” said Rabbi Joshua Brown of Temple Israel in Bath Township during the vigil. “On the light of Shabbat – the Jewish sabbath – the day our people have fought for millennia to protect, a day we gather to all our shuls, all our synagogues, all our houses, father and son, mother and daughter, lifting our voices in song and celebrating our story in our Torah, when that day is eclipsed by a single man filled with hate, our world is too dark.”

The Akron community was better protected at the time of the vigil than last week, Brown said, which was evident with at least five police officers at the event. Yet, the focus on security is also a form of darkness, Brown said, as it covers what he believes is the real problem.

“This is not a security problem, this is a moral problem,” he said, which drew applause from the audience. “Today, we declare we will not be neutral on this issue. There are not moral equivalents in the face of hate. We are not neutral about neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, (Va.,) we are not neutral about a white supremacist hunting people in Kentucky. We are not neutral about people who disagree with policies, who dislike immigrants and use that as an excuse to slaughter people who are in the midst of their prayer.”

Robert Bowers, a 46-year-old truck driver who is charged in connection with killing 11 and wounded six, including four officers, was charged in a 44-count indictment with murder, hate crimes and other offenses that could bring the death penalty and pleaded not guilty, according to The Associated Press.