Jo Recht: If you care about ending gun violence, speak up now

Last month marked 4½ years since our congregation, Dor Hadash, along with New Light and Tree of Life congregations, was attacked by a man spewing antisemitic and anti-immigrant hate, and wielding weapons of war. It also marked the start of jury selection in his trial.

Eleven congregants in our three congregations were killed, and six more people, both congregants and law enforcement officers, were injured. For a full year after Oct. 27, 2018, we stood and recited their names at every religious service: Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax, Irving Younger.

In honor of Jerry Rabinowitz, many of us in Dor Hadash continue to stand every time we read the Mourner’s Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning. While tradition requires only immediate family members to stand during that evocative prayer, Jerry used to stand whenever it was recited, to honor all the people who had no family to say Kaddish for them.

In the past 41⁄2 years we have learned a great deal about gun violence. Some of us have felt the pain of losing a family member or close friend — a pain that never ends. All of us in the congregations experienced trauma and lost the comfort of feeling safe in our synagogues and community. We understand that a mass shooting forever changes individuals, families and communities.

The Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooting was only one of 329 mass shootings in 2018, defined as shootings in which at least four people are wounded or killed. The very next day, on Oct. 28, 2018, two people were killed and two wounded in a shooting in El Dorado, Ark. It was only 11 days later that 13 people were killed and 16 more wounded in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Since the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, there have been mass shootings in schools, grocery stores, bars, nail salons, yoga studios, dance studios, banks, medical buildings, and parks. The number of mass shootings has been climbing, up to an unimaginable 686 in 2021. In 2022, over 600 people were killed and over 2,700 wounded in 648 mass shootings.

While mass shootings attract extensive media attention, we learned that they make up only a tiny sliver of all shootings. The majority of gun deaths are gun suicides. Community-based gun violence, including domestic violence, makes up most of the remainder. We learned that gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children in our country.

Right now, Pennsylvanians have the opportunity to do something meaningful to help prevent other communities from suffering as we have. For the first time in over five years, meaningful gun legislation is moving through the state Legislature. Four gun safety bills, known as the Common Agenda to End Gun Violence, are moving toward final passage in the state House later this month.

These bills are House Bill 714, which will enact universal background checks, so that weapons of war don’t end up in the wrong hands; HB 731, which requires guns to be stored safely in the home to prevent school shootings, youth suicides, and unintentional shootings; HB 1018, which creates Extreme Risk Protection Orders to help prevent firearm suicides, mass shootings and lethal domestic violence; and HB 338, which requires the reporting of lost and stolen firearms to reduce the number of illegal guns fueling violence in our communities.

The next step in passage, according to Pennsylvania’s legislative procedure, will be “third consideration,” the stage at which there is a vote for final passage of the bill by the full House. If the bills pass as we hope they do — an outcome which is not assured because the gun sense majority in the House is tenuous — they will move on to the state Senate. Once there, Sen. Lisa Baker, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will choose whether to hold hearings and allow the bills a committee vote, or keep them bottled up in committee until they die at the end of the legislative session.

Right now, all Pennsylvanians who care about preventing gun violence must speak up loudly and clearly. We must tell our state representatives that we support these bills. We must then reach out to our state senators with the same message. Finally, we must contact Baker and urge her to hold public hearings on these bills so they can be voted out through her committee to be considered by the full Senate.

Those of us whose representatives are already gun safety advocates can help by writing letters to the editor or op-eds.

We cannot accept the current level of gun violence in our state and in our nation. We must work to change things or we will continue to wake up each morning to news of yet another tragedy.

Jo Recht is president of Congregation Dor Hadash.