Myrtle Beach Jewish congregations host vigil honoring victims in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting

On Thursday, people in Myrtle Beach honored the eleven people who were shot and killed at a synagogue in Pittsburgh recently. They gathered for a vigil at the city’s holocaust memorial in the Market Common area.
Temple Emanue-El and Chabad of Myrtle Beach organized the service, and the city’s two other jewish congregations joined along with the general public. U.S. Congressman Tom Rice, State Representative Alan Clemmons, and Myrtle Beach Mayor Brenda Bethune also spoke the service.
The service included readings, Jewish songs of praise and mourning and also the lighting of candles for each victim who died in the shooting.
The speakers at the vigil talked about unity and the need to come together and support each other after tragedies like this.
“I think every community, every community across the country needs to acknowledge what happened. Even what happened in Charleston a couple of years ago, we all acknowledged that. We all acknowledge it’s a tragedy when this happens,” said Lily Ann Revitch, the president of the congregation at Temple Shalom. “As I said you can’t go around blaming the White House, the President, the Congress or anybody. It’s just the person. There’s a lot of very sick people in this world.
“If you don’t have anybody there, if you don’t have your family, you don’t have your community, then you shutter and lock yourself in the house out of fear. So this brings out from the shadows, and we just are a community and we stand with everybody else as they stand with us.”
The organizers also thanked the city of Myrtle Beach for assistance with the vigil. They said a special thanks to the city’s police department for having an extra presence around the city’s synagogues after the shooting in Pittsburgh.
Robert Bowers, 46, of Baldwin, Pa., is charged with multiple crimes, including hate crimes, for the massacre at Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday, October 27.
The 11 victims who died were: