Faith in a time of tragedy
Cousin of Tree of Life victim reflects on aftermath of shooting
GREENWICH — Harriet Dunkerley’s heart sank with the rest of the world as the news spread on Oct. 27.
“We had just finished doing a bar mitzvah here,” the Greenwich Reform Synagogue cantorial student said. “Everyone felt great — and then the rabbi came to me and said, ‘Oh my God, there was this shooting in Pittsburgh.’ ”
Dunkerley, a resident of Rockland Village, N.Y., was born and raised in Pittsburgh. Generations of both sides of her family lived in the city after fleeing religious persecution in Russia in the late-19th century. Her father grew up around the corner from the Tree of Life Congregation synagogue, where a man shouting antiSemitic slurs opened fire with an AR-15style assault rifle, killing 11 people.
When she heard the name of the synagogue, the cantor recognized it as a congregation her paternal grandparents once belonged to. She remembered walking past it with her uncle as a child.
At that moment Dunkerley had a strange feeling. She felt a kind of unexplainable
connection to the loss.
“When I was free to leave (Greenwich Reform), I called my parents on the way home,” she said.
At first Dunkerley and her family thought Rose Mallinger, one of the victims, might have been kin because of her surname.
“My mom said she was not related to us,” Dunkerley recalled. “I said, ‘Are you sure? I have this feeling like there’s a relation.’ I had a sense that there was a relation somewhere.”
Later that day, Dunkerley’s mother told her there was, in fact, a relation killed. Seventy-one-year-old Daniel Stein was the cantor’s cousin.
At that moment, the deadliest attack on Jews in American history hit even closer to home for Dunkerley.
“It felt sad,” the cantor said. “I just thought, ‘My God. This can happen to any of us. What would I do? What would anyone do?”
In a way, the news was unbelievable, Dunkerley said, but not surprising.
“The other thing that contributes to the sadness for me is that as horrifying as it is— I felt shocked at the brutality and the horror of it, but I didn’t feel surprised,” she said. “There’s so much hate right now in our country.”
Dunkerley grappled with the origin of the hate that inflamed the shooter’s antiSemitism when she told her 11-year-old daughter about the attack.
“I just wanted her to realize that it didn’t mean that I was unsafe doing what I’m doing or that she was unsafe in Hebrew school, but that this is happening and if she ever experiences anyone saying anything to her that’s mean or not right or nasty in anyway because she’s Jewish she needed to tell someone,” she said.
“She thought for a minute and she looked at me ... she said, ‘It’s Trump. He always speaks so hatefully. He’s so full of hate. It’s him.’ ”
The mother told her daughter, “It’s not his fault.”
“What it does teach us is that words matter,” she said. “And words have power. And how we use those words — especially if we’re in a position of power — makes a difference. It’s why it’s important to think about what we say before we say it. And if somebody hurts you with words, you don’t have to hurt them back with words.”
The shooting was not just an attack on Jews, but on immigrants, social media posts made by the alleged shooter indicate. That aspect of the incident is an affront to both Jewish and American values, the cantor said. “It touches a really deep place in me personally and as a human being and as a Jew,” she said. “This country was founded on the principles of hospitality and freedom. That’s what we’re about.”
Dunkerley said her faith hasn’t wavered in the months following the tragedy.
“I have a very strong faith,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I think everything happens for a reason. I think sometimes things happen and they are just horrible and we don’t know why. In those times, I feel I can look to God and to look at examples of where God has carried me through and our people, the Jewish people, through.
“I don’t think God causes things to happen. I don’t believe in a God of retribution or punishment. The God that I believe in is a God of compassion and mercy. I think when things like Pittsburgh happen, God is crying, too.”
Hanukkah has served as a poignant physical reminder of the cantor’s faith this year.
“The rabbis teach that each night you light more candles to bring more light into the world,” she said. “During this time of the year, when it’s the darkest time, it’s our way of bringing a little bit of light into the darkness.”
The other miracle of the holiday, the cantor said, is that the Maccabees’ small, people’s army defeated the Greeks.
“There’s no way that could or should have ever happened,” Dunkerley said. “But it did happen. And it teaches us that our future is not predetermined. Sometimes we know what’s going to happen, but more often that not, we don’t. When we walk through life not knowing, it’s a continual walk through faith.”
The miracles continue to teach Jews that sometimes faith has to carry the day, the cantor said. By lighting candles and bringing more light into the world during a time when it feels like the balance will never switch back to light, Dunkerley said Jews are doing what they can to be partners with God.
“Daniel Stein didn’t know what was going to happen that day when he went to synagogue. He just went to synagogue. None of the people there did,” she said. “The miracle is that the next week, more people went to synagogue and that didn’t happen again. And people keep going. That’s what we’re here to do.”
“I just thought, ‘My God. This can happen to any of us. What would I do? What would anyone do?’ ”
Harriet Dunkerley, student cantor, Greenwich Reform Synagogue