On Monday, hundreds of people with a powerful message of hope.
Eleven people killed on Saturday— a targeted attack on a Synagogue in the Squirrell Hill Neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
Two days later people packed into the Beth Shalom Congregation for a vigil.
Heather Friedman has been heartbroken for her Jewish community since the deadliest shooting at a Jewish Congregation in the history of the United States.
“I took this very personally being Jewish, especially with the gun mans comments that all Jews need to die,” Heather said.
For her mother Felicia, it was refreshing to see hundreds of people rallying after the attack on her religion.
“People come together in a time of need and they support each other,” Felecia said. “We should all be tolerant of each other and be there for each other."
Faith leaders talking about the importance of different faiths standing together.
“From the rhetoric of hate and the way in which that’s been emboldened in recent weeks, months, years in the divisions of our country,” said Rabbi Craig Axler from Temple Isiah. “It’s just not hard to understand where this violence comes from. We can only combat it with love and light.”
Rabbi Susan Grossman hosted the event.
She was touched by the outpouring of support and is looking for ways to stop more tragedies from happening.
“People wanted to know what can we do next and we have some community programs that we’re planning to do next,” Grossman said. “Particularly these courageous conversations where we’re bringing neighbors together to talk about what hurts us and what we're concerned about. Teach the lessons and methods of having civil conversations across differences? We’re having a meeting tomorrow night to start planning and that will start in February."
