Community, students gather for Pittsburgh shooting memorial

Members of the Chapman community gathered at the Fish Interfaith Center Oct. 29 at a memorial to honor the lives of the victims who were shot at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Photo by Gabriella Anderson

Sophomore Hanna Marcus, who is Jewish, felt the impact firsthand of the Pittsburgh shooting in which 11 people were killed at the Tree of Life synagogue last week. Her mother attended synagogue there on Saturdays when she lived in Pittsburgh. The family worried that Marcus’ grandfather was there during the shooting. 

Marcus was one of dozens of Chapman students and faculty who attended vigils that were held by Chapman Jewish student organizations Students Supporting Israel (SSI), Chabad and Hillel, as well as the Fish Interfaith Center, where candles were lit for the 11 victims. 

Chapman’s religious leaders, including Cisa Payuyo, associate director of Church Relations, Rabbi Corie Yutkin, director of Jewish Life, and Jibreel Speight, director of Muslim Life, spoke at the event. 

“This has had a huge impact on my mom,” Marcus told The Panther. “She called me and I heard about the news from her first. She was really distraught.” 

During the Oct. 29 service, which began at 8 p.m., attendees were given handouts with the words to a prayer from the book of Psalms. 

“The only way to beat darkness is with a light … one small candle can light a very dark room,” Chabad director Rabbi Eliezer Gurary, told The Panther Oct. 29. The same goes for this event. By taking the dark time and translating it into light through unity and acts of goodness and kind- ness … we can combat the darkness.” 

Daniel Levine, the director of Jewish Student Life at the Hillel Foundation of Orange County, led attendees in a prayer, during which he listed the victims of the shooting by name. 

“Our community mourns the loss of our people as they were savagely killed as they prayed together and celebrated the arrival of a newborn into their community,” Dalia Vered, president of Students Supporting Israel, said at the memorial. “Our recent tragedy is yet another reminder that the age-old evil of anti-Semitism remains a uniquely dangerous and destructive force in our world.” 

Vered was sent a message on Instagram Oct. 31 that said “Jewish must be die. Happy (expletive) Halloween.” The direct message was sent with a purple demon Emoji and a ghost Emoji. Vered doesn’t know who runs the account, and as of Nov. 4, the account “nyc.ru” was removed. 

Incidents of anti-Semitism, which can include physical assaults, vandalism and attacks on Jewish institutions have increased by nearly 60 percent since 2017, according to the Anti-Defamation League. These incidents were reported in all 50 states. 

As recently as Oct. 31, someone spray painted the phrase “(Expletive) Jews” on an Irvine synagogue at around 1:18 a.m. The Irvine Police Department completed a “full sweep of the entire facility,” according to a Facebook post by the Orange County Jewish Life Magazine. 

Marcus said that anti-Semitic acts like the vandalism at the Irvine synagogue won’t discourage her. 

“Judaism, for me, is something that I am proud of. I’m proud to be Jewish,” she said. “I can’t let someone so insane change my pride for my religion.” 

Gurary invited attendees at the Oct. 29 vigil to write down a mitzvah they would complete in honor of those who were killed. A mitzvah is performing any good deed, Gurary said. 

“What makes Jewish people a family is that we all come from the same root or the same beginning,” Gurary said. “We find this world to be a good place by doing a mitzvah.” 

At the Oct. 29 memorial, Payuyo spoke to an audience of around 50 people and said that the nation has lost its moral compass. 

“Guns are not going to solve the problem,” Payuyo said at the vigil. “We need to understand each other better and it is not through the barrel of a gun.” 

Speight said the campus vigil is a reminder of how to deal with differences constructively – not destructively. He mentioned two Muslim groups, CelebrateMercy and MPower Change, which raised more than $200,000 to pay for the Pittsburgh victims’ funeral expenses. 

“People let their hatred and their animalistic desires be the thing that drives them to act in a manner that is destructive to many people,” Speight said.

Simon Shifrin, a Jewish freshman communication studies major who attended the Oct. 29 memorial said it was the least he could do to attend. 

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my great-grandmother surviving the Holocaust,” Shifrin said. 

Yutkin told The Panther Oct. 29 that she saw the gathering as a way for the community to establish a safe space. 

“When we don’t talk to each other, that’s when these problems get stronger,” she said.