13 Candles Lit For Victims
In Pennsylvania, Kentucky
By LIBBY CUDMORE • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
COOPERSTOWN – Rev. Joseph Perdue, First Baptist Church of Cooperstown, did not mince words as he read a statement from Zack Jackson, pastor, Community United Church of Christ in Reading, Penn, as part of the vigil for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue.
“This man who committed this massacre is a self-proclaimed Christian,” he said. “You will be tempted to say ‘He’s not a real Christian’ and feel no responsibility for him the way we do with Westboro Baptist, abortion clinic bombers and every other person who kills in Jesus’ name. It’s easy to walk away. But we must, instead, walk towards the problem of Christian extremism and face it head on!”
Perdue, along with other members of the Cooperstown faith community, gathered with nearly 100 mourners to honor the 11 killed at the Tree of Life, as well as for Maurice Stallard and Vickie Lee Jones, who were killed by a white supremacist in the parking lot of a Kroger grocery store on Wednesday, Oct. 24.
Organizer Rich Sternberg lit 13 candles for the dead. “We have too many of these,” he said. “There is a phrase in Hebrew, ‘Tikkun Olam’ which means ‘to fix the world’. Never in my lifetime have I ever felt the need more, as the loss of civil discourse and the immediate resort to weapons of mass destruction to resolve one’s frustrations. This is the first time in my family’s history that anti-Semitism has risen to a level that could make all of us, especially our children, feel unsafe.”
Father John Rosson, St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, said that during Mass that morning, they had rung the bell 11 times, once for each victim, and prayed for victim Rose Mallinger, whose funeral was held today. Quoting Leonard Cohen’s “Beautiful Losers,” he read, ““What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love.”
“In the saints today,” he said. “We add Rose Mallinger.”
Jazz band Triple Play played “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” in honor of Squirrel Hill, where Fred Rogers lived while he filmed “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.”
“I have heard the hearts of the Jewish people,” said Rev. LaDana Clark. “We must not allow tragedy to cause us to build these bridges. We have to allow these lives to build bridges with each other. We all have to do better for one and other.”
Dr. Daryl Gildenblatt led the participants in the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of Mourning, to close out the service.
And Perdue used Jackson’s words to call for Christians to stand up for those who may experience hate or bigotry. “I hope it offends you that this man is a Christian,” he said. “I hope you are offended for Jesus and that you stand up for him. Own it. Face it. Defeat it. Hate has no place in our church.”