Tributes and support for NZ’s Muslim community
Rabbi Joseph Dweck, the senior rabbi of the S&P Sephardi community, alongside Muslim, Catholic and Methodist leaders.
Stephen Goodman, the president of the New Zealand Jewish Council told the JC: “The New Zealand Jewish Council has no adequate words to describe how sickened and devastated we are by the coordinated attacks on Christchurch mosques.
“We offer our full assistance and support to the Muslim community and stand united with it against the scourge of terrorism and racism, which we must do all we can to banish from New Zealand.”
In Britain, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said: “There can be few acts of a greater evil than the massacre of peaceful people at prayer.”
Interfaith services were held in both New Zealand and Australia to remember the victims.
In Christchurch, Rabbi Mendel Goldstein, who leads New Zealand Chabad, visited the huge display of floral tributes laid outside a community college close to the mosques in Christchurch.
In keeping with Jewish tradition he did not leave flowers of his own but placed a stone gathered from a nearby beauty spot which had been inscribed with the words shalom, salaam and kia kaha, a Maori phrase meaning “stay strong”.
In the United States, a fundraising drive for the victims’ families was launched by a group of synagogues that included the Tree of Life in Pittsburgh, where 11 worshippers were killed last year by another gunman with suspected far-right views. The American Muslim community had raised over $200,000 (£150,000) for the Pittsburgh victims last year.