A makeshift memorial was placed by a light pole a block away from a shooting incident where one person was killed at the Congregation Chabad synagogue in Poway, north of San Diego, California.. (photo credit: JOHN GASTALDO/REUTERS)
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Hours after an active shooter opened fire in the Congregation Chabad synagogue in Poway, its congregants were praying together again.
Rabbi Mendel Goldstein, the son of Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who was wounded in Saturday’s attack, described how after three hours of questioning by police, members of the shul retreated to his nearby home to finish their morning prayers, including the Yizkor memorial prayer.
“We made a very special Yizkor,” Goldstein told The Jerusalem Post from San Diego, where his father is still in the hospital with a bullet injury to his hand. “The men bentched [blessed] Hagomel and during Yizkor we prayed for Lori Gilbert Kaye and we said Am Yisrael Chai – we will be strong and continue on.”
The Hagomel blessing is the Jewish prayer of gratitude, typically said after recovering from a serious illness or surviving a dangerous journey. Kaye was murdered in the shooting attack.
“Everyone was there together,” continued Goldstein. “We were all mourning, we all had tears in our eyes, but we were looking forward.
“It is going to be tough, we will need a lot of help, but we will be strong.”
Goldstein said that before the shooter entered the synagogue the atmosphere was “joyous.” Members were celebrating the last day of Passover and the Torah scroll had just come out of the ark. During the fifth aliyah to the Torah, they heard a bang. The first bang, they were not sure what was happening, but by the second, everyone knew.
Forty to fifty people were in the shul, 10 to 15 of them children.
“We all just ran for the door,” Goldstein recalled, who noted that his father and Kaye were not in the sanctuary at the time of the shooting. “I ran out of the shul to the patio and then jumped over the gate into the trees and to the playground to find my kids. That was my first thought.”
He said the shul has multiple entrances and exits and the shooter had entered through the main door.
“People ran out alternate exits,” he said. “Out of every door they ran.”
Goldstein told The Post that Chabad had security training. He explained that immediately after the Pittsburgh shooting attack, which took place six months prior, the synagogue underwent training with the local sheriff and that the mayor had come of the facility to give a briefing about what is needed in event of an active shooter. He admits that no one thought it would happen to them.
“I am not sure we were practicing what we were taught,” Goldstein said. “But for sure it helped.”
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