Friends:

The horrific shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday night, leaves us heartbroken. This was a terrible act of racism and hate that took the lives of 9 innocent African-Americans. Our prayers are with the families of the victims, the church community, and also with all those who are the targets of hatred and prejudice.

It is striking that these racially-motivated murders could occur in a house of worship, a house of God, in an effort to deny the basic religious tenets of both Judiasm and Christianity: that all people are created in the image of God. As we grieve and ponder the meaning of this terrible event in our country, we affirm this very message of our tradition, that all human beings are equally reflections of the Divine.

I think it would be a mistake to pin sole responsibility for the Charleston shootings on one "deranged" individual. While he is clearly responsible for his actions, we must confront the pervasive hatred and racism that continues to exist in many places in our society today. Our attention must be drawn to other recent violent acts in America that reveal the depth of prejudice and intolerance in our country, and we must be moved to act and to speak the truth about how racism, both explicit and implicit, continues to persist.

This Shabbat, we mourn. May our mourning also be a call to deeper reflection and to meaningful action to bring healing to our country at the root of its problems.

- Rabbi Andy Vogel

[To read the statement by the Religious Action Center of the Reform Movement (located in Washington, DC), please click here: http://www.rac.org/reform-movement-mourns-victims-charleston-ame-tragedy]