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July 30, 1999/17 Av 5759, Vol. 51, No.43
Orthodox persevere in face of hatred
ALLISON KAPLAN
Special to Jewish News
My Fourth of July weekend was interrupted before it got started, by a frantic 8 a.m. call from my editor. Six Orthodox Jews had been shot; Ricky Byrdsong was dead. I was to report to the crime scene.
Two thoughts immediately came to mind: I've never covered a crime scene involving Orthodox Jews. And who was Ricky Byrdsong - a rabbi?
Like most non-basketball fans, I now know all about Ricky Byrdsong - a Division I coach, a father, a husband, a model citizen. I wish I had never heard of him, because what I know, I learned only after his senseless death. Byrdsong was shot by a hate-filled white supremacist because he was black, just minutes after six others were shot because they wore yarmulkes on their heads.
The first thought I blurted out to my editor upon learning that a gunman had blazed through West Rogers Park, a predominantly Jewish area of Chicago, was: "Photographers will not be allowed inside the synagogues. It's Shabbat."
It was quiet when I arrived at Estes Avenue, where one of the victims had taken a bullet in the stomach on his front lawn. A lone cameraman and two female detectives were knocking in vain on door after door. I spotted a group of women in long dresses and head scarves and approached tentatively.
"Not now," one of the women told me. "It's our Sabbath."
I thought about saying, "I know, mine too," but I decided I wouldn't be very convincing in my tank top and khakis, clutching car keys, a notebook and cellphone.
I felt so close, and so very far away, from this stricken community. To the men and women I stopped on the corners - asking for accounts, impressions of the crime - I was yet another outsider disturbing the day of prayer. But had I been so unlucky as to cross paths with alleged gunman Benjamin Smith, he would have hated me every bit as much as those he is said to have shot.
Tracing his mad trail up and down the city streets, I couldn't help but think of my late grandmother, who lived just two blocks from the crime scene and had been accustomed to sitting on a corner bench summer evenings at dusk - just at the time the killer struck.
I caught up with two women, a mother and her grown daughter. The mother told me she might move back to Israel. She feels safer there. The grown daughter said she had kept her children inside that morning, fearing the gunman's return. The women's words filled my notebook with raw emotion. But when I asked for their names, they shook their heads no. "It's Shabbat; we can't," the younger woman gently insisted. "But would you like to come for Shabbos lunch?"
She couldn't tell me her name for a newspaper article that would be published on Sunday, but she invited me into her home.
While I certainly know what to expect from Orthodox Jews on a Saturday, their commitment to proceed with the day, uninterrupted, amazed me and concerned me. What if some of the neighbors had spoken to police earlier, rather than waiting until sundown? Could they have better aided the manhunt?
But as we learned about Benjamin Smith's intense bigotry; as I attended the church funeral of Ricky Byrdsong and watched traditional Jews come to pay their respects; as I covered a solidarity vigil and saw Orthodox rabbis join hands with Muslims and Latinos and Asians and African Americans, I felt proud of my people. Their instinct was right on from the start - persevere in the face of hatred.
Allison Kaplan is a columnist for the Chicago Jewish Star.
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