SoFla Synagogues Call For Peace After 11 Killed In PA Mass Shooting

Jewish leaders across South Florida on Sunday preached peace and kindness a day after a gunman killed 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Rabbi Andrew Jacobs, of Temple Emanu-El in Miami Beach, urged Jewish community members to always practice kindness and to remember those lost in Pittsburgh.

In Plantation, a support group gathered Sunday morning at the Ramat Shalom synagogue.

"What I heard from so many people is that they just needed to be with others," Rabbi Andrew Jacobs said. 

Jacobs said he felt the need to discuss Saturday's shooting. About two dozen people attended the special service, where the rabbi passed along a message of strength and unwavering faith in troubling times. 

Rabbi Jonathan Berkun, of Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center, wrote a blog post about his connection to the Pittsburgh synagogue that was attacked.

"For the last 35 years, my father Rabbi Alvin K Berkun has attended every Shabbat morning service at the Tree Of Life -- Or L'Simcha Congregation in Pittsburgh. For 23 years, he was the congregation's rabbi," Berkun wrote. "Tree of Life was my second home, the community in which I grew up and became a Bar Mitzvah."

Berkun said he had recently hosted two of the victims at his Aventura synagogue.

He urged people to be more politically active to combat hateful rhetoric, and he encouraged Jewish people to attend services to show they cannot be intimidated. 

"If you are Jewish, come to shul. Show the haters that they will never win," he said.


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