NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the fabric of America “stressed and frayed” during a Tuesday night prayer vigil for the the 11 worshipers massacred in a Pittsburgh synagogue last weekend.
Hundreds of people flocked to the historic Central Synagogue on Lexington Avenue and East 55th Street to offer prayers and tears for people murdered during Shabbat services at The Tree of Life synagogue Saturday.
“We gather this evening to pray and to marshal the voices of support and love as an antidote to the forces of division and hate,” Cuomo said.
A capacity crowd of 700 people somberly sang Jewish prayers and psalms, as well as “America the Beautiful” together.
Speakers, including Cuomo, Timothy Cardinal Dolan and the Reverend Amy Butler of the Riverside Church, said they were united in their grief and the desire to stand up to hate.
Angela Warnick Buchdahl, the senior rabbi at Central Synagogue, denounced the rise of hate crimes, bigotry and violent events, including the slew of pipe bombs sent to high-profile liberals and critics of President Trump, allegedly by a Florida man last week.
“We’ve see the face of hate and it is chilling,” Buchdahl said. “It cries out ‘all Jews must die’ before killing violently innocent people in a sanctuary. It is our Jewish community’s worst nightmare and it feels impossible to believe that’s it’s happening here in America.”
“But it’s not just an attack on Jews alone,” she added. “Bigotry loves company. And this Pittsburgh shooter expressed his hatred also for Muslims and for immigrants.”
Near the end of the hour-long vigil, the names of the 11 victims were read aloud as well as the names of the two people shot and killed at a Kroger supermarket in Kentucky last week in an apparent hate crime.