Rabbi Bradd Boxman of Kol Tikvah, a Reform congregation in the town close to Boca Raton, held a healing and memorial service after the mass shooting that was attended by community members.
Alex Schachter
According to Rabbi Boxman, a large number of students from his congregation was enrolled at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan of Temple Beth Chai counseled parents at the local Marriott hotel whose children were still unaccounted for. Kaplan said that Jamie Guttenberg was among his congregants, and he had tutored her for her Bat Mitzvah in August 2016, the Forward reported.
Rabbi Shuey Biston, director of outreach and development of Chabad of Parkland, said the Jewish community in Parkland was very tight-knit.
“This is a small community, where nearly half of the population is Jewish, so everyone has been touched by what has happened,” Biston told Chabad.org. “The phones at Chabad have been ringing off the wall as people come for emotional, spiritual and material support.”
Scott Beigel Photo: Facebook
The attack was committed by Nikolas Cruz, 19, who was expelled from the school last year for disciplinary problems. Cruz, who was arrested by police shortly after the attack, was charged with 17 counts of premediated murder and ordered to remain in jail without bond by a judge on Thursday.
Officials said that Cruz, who used an AR-15 assault rifle for the attack, had a “very disturbing” social-media presence, which included showing a large number of guns and sharing pictures of small animals he had shot, NBC News reported.
Additionally, the leader of a white-supremacist militia called the Clearwater Republic of Florida said Cruz was a member of his group and participated in paramilitary drills in Tallahassee, according to the Associated Press.
Jordan Jereb, the leader of the white-supremacist group, said he didn’t know Cruz personally, and that “he acted on his own behalf of what he just did and he’s solely responsible for what he just did.”
He added that Cruz had “trouble with a girl,” and believes that the attack on Valentine’s Day was not a coincidence.
Anton Block, the president of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said: “The Australian Jewish community is shocked and saddened by the massacre of 17 people at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Once again an American community is forced to come to terms with scenes of destruction, despair and sorrow inflicted on their own, by their own, in yet another mass shooting incident.
We pray for all of the victims of this despicable crime. We pray for the souls of the murdered and for their families to be granted strength at this terrible time. We wish long life to the families of the victims. May the memories of their loved ones be a blessing.”
With JNS
Well done to the mother of one of the slaughtered victims. We need to see more of this on You Tube as well as in the mainstream media in the USA and world wide and it should be relentless until the US congress “man up” and make a decision to restricting the types of arms available to the public.
If some Americans want to hunt deer or rabbit let then do it with a blot action single shot rifle not a semi automatic or automatic rifle. If US game hunters cant hit their quarry first shot then they should take up knitting or lawn bowls instead.
Yet another terrible tragedy involving mental illness, assault rifles, and a US school. Deepest sympathy to the families of the bereaved and the injured; our highest admiration is extended to those who shielded the children from the bullets.
While two of our grandchildren were growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I was shocked that the Jewish Day School which they attended had no perimeter fence and no security personnel. At the end of each school day, the children waited outside with a teacher for their parent or other adult to pick them up in a car queue.
When I queried this seemingly dangerous situation (so different from our fenced and guarded schools in Melbourne), the school arranged for our grandchildren to be picked up from a hall inside the school. I’d hoped for a fence and a guard!
That’s part of the problem. The other part – the (Constitutional) right to bear arms – will require a lot of persuasion and goodwill, but assault rifles were banned before in the US and should be again.
The President has the power to act – does he have the courage?
The US NRA and many in the US Congress ate no better than ISIS.
Some say that the NRA is a terrorist organisation that is run like the mafia paying of politicians.
The general public in America dont need to be armed with Automatic Rifles or arms generally, like in sensible Commonwealth countries like Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Condolences to the families of all those killed and wounded, including the five pictured above.