Sam Luken, first heard the news when she and her fellow worshipers at Temple B’nai Israel in Muskegon were getting ready to pray.
“We were just about to say the Mourner’s Kaddish, which is the prayer for the dead and right before we were about to say that the news came out and somebody got an alert on their phone and we were able to pray for those people at that time, right before.”
(Oseh Shalom play for 3 seconds)
One of the common closing prayers for Mourner’s Kaddish is Oseh Shalom.
(Joshua Davis singing Oseh Shalom)
That is Joshua Davis, a local, Jewish singer song writer best known for appearing on the show The Voice. In response to the shooting he went on Instagram with his rendition of Oseh Shalom.
“These are people first, and they are Jews second, in my mind, and there were people that were murdered in church, and people that were murdered in a gay club, and people that were murdered in school the same people as people that were murdered in the synagogue.”
For Diane Baum, a local Torah teacher, empathy is the appropriate response to tragedies like these.
“Don’t give a way to fear and don’t think of retaliation. Divisions are always bad when we blame the other person or the other group for a particular action against our group and I think that our society is way too divided as it is.”
Michelle Jokisch Polo, WGVU News.