South African in shul during San Diego shul shooting

TALI FEINBERG

“The whole thing took only about 30 seconds to a minute but I counted about 15 shots fired. I heard women screaming and men shouting.”

He says there were about 70 or 80 people in shul – way more than were in the Pittsburgh shul when a shooting claimed eleven lives six months earlier.

But, in this instance, more deaths were prevented because the shooter’s gun jammed, and he was confronted by a shul member who had been in the military. “As soon as the shooting stopped, I ran out of an emergency exit, so I never saw the carnage,” says Meyerowitz.

But he knew the woman who was killed in the attack, Lori Gilbert-Kaye. “She was a wonderful, charitable person, and her family was at shul every Shabbos.” The rabbi of the congregation, Yisroel Goldstein, lost two fingers in the attack, but managed to keep calm, and even finish his sermon before being taken to hospital. An Israeli man, Almog Peretz, and his eight-year-old niece, Noya Dahan, were also injured. They had moved to San Diego from Sderot (on the Gaza border) to escape the constant threat of rockets there.

“This is a quiet town, and the shul is in a quiet lane. There was no security because no one ever expected this to happen here,” says Meyerowitz, who had even seen children playing in the reception area of the shul just before the shooting.

“The attitude has been ‘no one will worry us, we don’t have a fight with anyone, and we’re a welcoming community’. But obviously that will have to change now,” he says. “South Africa is usually 20 years behind the United States, but in security at shuls and public places, South Africa is 20 years ahead.”

He says the America of today is a different place to what it was when he arrived 23 years ago, and this kind of terrorism is becoming an everyday occurrence. It is something he never could have imagined when he made San Diego his home.

Other South African expats living in the area expressed their shock at the shooting. “I heard the news when I got home from shul, and was simply flabbergasted,” says Howard Schachat, originally from Cape Town. “I’ve been to that shul, and sang in the choir for a Barmitzvah there. It’s a lovely community. I was in tears watching the rabbi speak after the shooting.”

“It’s almost like a lid of permission has been opened for white supremacists,” he says, referring to the actions of the current United States administration. “It is a passive or even active consent to allow them to behave in a way they would never have before.

“Ten years ago, I would never have expected something like this to happen in San Diego, but now, with neo-Nazis saying ‘Jews will not replace us’ in Charlottesville, it’s a different paradigm, and Jews will always be the scapegoat.”

Daniel Weiss, also originally from Cape Town, attends the shul, and his children go to Hebrew school there.

It is a ten minute drive from where he lives, “and this definitely hit too close to home”, he says. “It’s a huge shock, but in a way it could also be expected, especially in the US. Until the laws change, it has just become too easy to get a gun,” Weiss says.

He attended a vigil on the night after the shooting, along with hundreds of other people. “The eight-year-old girl who was injured in the attack was there. It wasn’t only a Jewish event, but a San Diego event, with an amazing blend of people, the mayor and a senator.” He says the turnout demonstrated that people were deeply affected by the shooting way beyond the Jewish community.

Claire Ellman, originally from Johannesburg, has known Rabbi Goldstein for 30 years while working on Jewish education projects. More recently, she interacted with him through the Friendship Circle programme she runs out of his shul. She also knew Gilbert-Kaye – “she worked on many tzedakah projects including the Friendship Circle”.

Ellman said when she first heard of the shooting, she was shocked. “We had been at another shul for Shabbat morning, last day Pesach and Yizkor with our kids and four grandkids. We left near the end, and a police car pulled up at the very secure entrance to our shul and asked the guard to step up to the van. We thought it was a bit strange, but didn’t think much of it until we got home and a friend called to tell me what had happened. I learnt that Lori had been murdered only later that afternoon.”

She says she never imagined this could happen there, “but we are South Africans and are in Israel a lot, and we see the rise of anti-Semitism all over the world and the dysfunctional individuals who have access to guns in this country. Every week, it’s another shooting. We had one of our mosques burnt just last week by an unknown arsonist. There’s a combination of hate and violence being accepted values, having access to guns, and the now more open acceptance of being anti-Jew and anti-Muslim.”

To the South African Jewish community, she says, “Never be complacent! Keep your eyes open. Continue with the great work of your CSO [Community Security Organisation]. Kids need to meet with other faiths in structured, facilitated groups to learn how hate breeds hate and love and understanding breeds love.”

Cheryl Horn, originally from Cape Town, says she knew Rabbi Goldstein, and was horrified and shocked. “Today and yesterday there were police cars outside our shul, and when I dropped off the kids at Hebrew day school this morning, there were cop cars there too.”

Daniela Peiser Levi, who lived in Cape Town for a number of years, knew Gilbert-Kaye through friends and her husband had gone to the Chabad shul several times.

She says people “are on one hand feeling scared, like me. On the other hand, it does unite the community, and there is a beauty in how everyone is coming together to remember Lori and those that were injured and to stand strong against hate.

“We will continue to go to shul as always, but there is definitely a heightened sense of security at the shuls, the schools, and community events. A friend of ours is organising the logistics of the funeral, which is expected to have a large turnout.”

Her first reaction when she heard of the shooting was fear, “as it hit really close to home. Poway is within the San Diego Jewish community, and we are all connected. It could have been any one of us. It just takes one person to create a horror. My reaction was to let those I love know how much they meant to me, and to give my kids extra hugs and kisses. I want to keep them safe.”