On April 13, a gunman shot and killed two people in the parking lot of the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kansas, and murdered another outside Village Shalom, a nearby senior living facility. The suspect in the killings, an avowed white supremacist and anti-Semite, was targeting Jews, but instead allegedly shot members of the Methodist and Catholic communities.
“The pain of the April 13th Kansas tragedy is deep,” says Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Southwest Regional Director Martin B. Cominsky. “It reminds us we still are not free from anti-Semitism. And because it touched other communities, it reminds us that hatred focused on one group hurts all of us.”
ADL’s Coalition for Mutual Respect has reached out to our Christian friends and friends of other faiths as well to join together with us at a brief morning service from 8:15 to 9:00 a.m. Thursday, April 24, at the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center, (ERJCC) 5601 South Braeswood, 77096 to pay tribute to the victims of the shootings and to pray for an end to violence, hate and bigotry.
We are grateful to the ERJCC for contributing facilities for this service and to Rabbi Marc Disick of Congregation Emanu El, who once led the reform Jewish congregation in Overland Park, Kansas, for his inspiration for this service. We have invited a representative from the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, Pastor Emeritus Dr. Jim Bankston of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, Cantor Daniel Mutlu of Congregation Beth Israel, Rabbi Disick and Rabbi David Rosen of Congregation Beth Yeshurun to participate. We also have invited Manpreet Singh from the Sikh community whose members have experienced this pain in recent years as well, and Bobbi Samuels, President of the ERJCC, to speak.
We invite media coverage of this service.