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May 19, 2000/14 Iyar 5760, Vol. 52, No.37
Jewish mothers among 'million'
LEISAH NAMM
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 Nearly 40 Hadassah representatives supported gun control at the Million Mom March on May 14, at Patriots Square Park in downtown Phoenix. Pictured are, front row, from left, Katie Atkins, Robin Koehler and Sarah Atkins. Back row, Susan Atkins, Risa Mallin, Tobe Geller, Jacquie Koblenz, Thea Friedman, Muriel Beck, Lisa Blumstein, Seema Liston and Sandy Grove. Photo by Diane Eckstein |
Marchers voiced support for background checks at gun shows, registration of firearms and licensing of gun owners, as well as safety locks on handguns.
Smaller rallies were held in some 70 other communities around the country, including Phoenix and Tucson.
In Phoenix, nearly 1,500 people attended a rally at Patriots Square Park, said Jan Binder, co-chairwoman of the event. Among them were some 40 local representatives of Hadassah, who wore personalized white-and-pink "Million Mom March" T-shirts.
Two groups opposing the march, the "Second Amendment Sisters" and "Tyranny," also demonstrated in Phoenix. Opponents circled the park in a spray-painted truck, calling the marchers "facists" and "communists," Binder said. Several carried guns.
Binder has received several e-mails from opponents of the Million Mom March.
"Many of the e-mails have the same argument: 'Hitler took all the guns away and if the Jews had been able to defend themselves, they wouldn't have been murdered,' " she said.
The larger Jewish community appears galvanized and mobilized around gun control, perhaps in part because of last August's shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, Calif.
That incident, with the nationally televised images of a daisy chain of children being led away from the center by policemen, gave originator Donna Dees-Thomases the idea for the Million Mom March.
Legislators in Washington, however, are unlikely to do more than listen to the demands of the marchers, as the chance of any gun-control legislation passing this session is minimal. A major bill on gun- control has been languishing in Congress for more than nine months.
Nevertheless, people like Gail Powers of Los Angeles believe the issue will be a decisive one in congressional races.
Powers, whose son was in a classroom at the North Valley JCC during the shooting, got involved because she didn't want another parent to experience the fear she did.
Small groups representing synagogues or Jewish organizations from around the country came to Washington with banners and signs, dotting the mall grounds.
Members of Temple Sholom in Broomall, Pa., clustered around their sign: "Whoever saves one life, it is as if he saved the entire world. Control guns - save the world!"
At an interfaith service just before the Washington rally and march began, Rabbi Marc Israel of the Reform movement's Religious Action Center urged more action from the Jewish community, saying it is not enough to avoid violence, but people must be "rodfei shalom," pursuers of peace.
"True peace can only be found when our families and our communities are complete, when gun violence no longer shatters our lives and the lives of our loved ones," he said.