Chabad workers in Boston helped provide aid to victims
BOSTON – Signing up for the shaliah (emissary) gig in Beantown, Chabad Rabbi Mayer Zarchi probably never thought counseling victims of a terror attack would be part of his job requirements.The Algemeiner also spoke with representatives, who said:
But with his headquarters located only a few blocks from the scene of the Boston Marathon bombing site this past Patriots Day, his office near Mass General Hospital where he is a chaplain become a spot frantic runners and spectators could call loved ones after the cellphone lines went down due to high volume.
“People needed help, and we were there to provide it,” Zarchi told The Jerusalem Post. [...]
“It was a beautiful day,” said Zarchi, reflecting. “Everybody was enjoying themselves. The Boston Marathon is one of the great national sporting events. But in a nanosecond, everything transformed.”
Mayshe Schwartz, Rabbi at Chabad Chai Center in Brookline, Massachusetts, told The Algemeiner that the community is still trying to come to terms with what happened, but that the incident must not shake people’s morale.True. Neither the Jewish community nor any other civilized society around the world can let that happen.
“We know whoever did do it wants to disrupt our freedom and our love of life. And the only response, when someone wants to take that away from you, is have more love of life and express more freedom and kindness at each other. That’s the only thing we can do right now.”
Rabbi Schwartz added that the Jewish community must remain strong and that it “cannot allow the fear that [the perpetrators] try to instill in us to manifest.”
Labels: anti-americanism, islam, jihad, Judaism, terrorism, United States