PALM BEACH, Fla. — Just inside the front door to the Palm Beach Synagogue, a picture of 60-year-old Lori Gilbert Kaye.
“(She was) shot and murdered in cold blood on the way to pray,” said Rabbi Moshe Scheiner to the worshipers Monday, who came to a vigil for the deadly shooting at a California synagogue Saturday.
On the holiest day of the week, she became a victim of hate.
“The community is not only grieving and saddened but very alarmed and concerned about a trend we’re started to see in America,” Rabbi Scheiner said in an interview.
It’s the second deadly shooting on American soil at a synagogue in less than a year. In October, 11 people were shot and killed at a Pittsburgh.
“There’s a new resurgence of anti-Semitism, not just on Facebook posts, but with violence,” Rabbi Scheiner said.
Just outside the entrance of the synagogue, another trend: more visible armed guards.
“With one phone call, we’re able to locate a good amount of intelligence, of resources, like you can see tonight,” said Michael Lampert, a volunteer security chairman for the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County. “You ask yourself, what can we do to strengthen our people, our places of worship, our entire community, how can we make it safer for everybody.”
“We want people to be able to live their lives, to be able to worship, to go to work, raise their families to be part of community that’s safe,” he said.
It’s the reaction to the action. An indictment of the times. Rabbi Scheiner hopes the decency in man can win out.
“We don’t want the world to become this type of a place. A house of worship becomes a danger zone, where you have to have armed guards,” he said.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a news conference Monday that the hate is a sickness and said he is working to secure funding for security for Jewish day schools.