In response to the Orlando nightclub shooting that left 49 people dead and 53 injured, two Great Neck temples gathered the community for a rally in support of the victims.
Temple Beth-El and Temple Israel organized a “rally in response to hate” last Thursday, where about 100 people got together to memorialize those whose lives were lost on June 12.
“In the wake of Orlando’s mass murder, our Jewish tradition and our multiple-faith traditions call upon us, charge us to be a uniting force bringing people together in solidarity and in outrage and in courage and in hope,” Rabbi Tara Feldman of Temple Beth-El said. “Tonight we affirm that there is, even in the face of what we see out there, reason to hope.”
Elected officials, clergymen and women, congregants and residents met at the steps outside of Temple Beth-El on Old Mill Road to sing and pray together in honor of the shooting victims.
Omar Mateen, a Florida resident who was born in the Queens section of New Hyde Park, was shot and killed by police after committing the mass shooting.
Feldman said it was “incredible” to see people from different places of worship coming together for one common cause.
The focus, she said, was to offer a spiritual and religious response to hate.
“We are pained. Pained by the hatred which still exists towards the LGBT community,” Feldman said. “Pained by another mass shooting on American soil. Pained by all religious, racial and ethnic hatred.”
Rabbi Howard Stecker of Temple Israel said everyone at the rally was there as Americans, no matter which religious and social communities they came from.
“We’re here as Americans. Americans who ought to be feeling profoundly angry and sad that our understanding that this is a country for all human beings, our understanding that everyone’s right to live and to love is sacrosanct – that this understanding has been questioned,’’ Stecker said. “But surely this understanding has not been shattered because we believe even more strongly now than we did a few days ago that we need to fight vociferously to make sure the rights of every single American to live their lives of liberty and lives of happiness to be maintained.”
Rabbi Michael Klayman, of the Lake Success Jewish Center and head of the Great Neck Clergy Association, said after the events in Orlando, it was important to recognize the different points of views of people all over the world.
“I think that what we share in common is a vision of a world in which we can respect differences, even as we passionately defend what we believe,” Klayman said. “We share a vision of the world which welcomes differences in religion and gender, sexual preference, color of skin.”
Representatives from the various houses of worship in Great Neck included Rabbis Rabbi Dale Polokoff of the Great Neck Synagogue, Rabbi Yaacov Lerner of Young Israel, Rabbi Daniel Schweber of Temple Israel, Rabbi Meir Feldman of Temple Beth-El, Rabbis Marim Charry and Meir Mitelman, and Bertha Del Carpio from St. Aloysius Church.
Local elected officials who attended the event included North Hempstead Town Councilwomen Anna Kaplan and Lee Seeman, as well as former North Hempstead Town Supervisor Jon Kaiman.
The president of Temple Beth-El, Ron Epstein, said it was “really heart-warming” to see the Great Neck community come together during “troubled times.”
Those gathered at the rally recited Jewish prayers and sang “If I Had a Hammer,” “We Shall Overcome” and “America the Beautiful.”
The names of all 49 people who died in the shooting were read aloud.
