Anti-Gun Violence

Installing the Memorial to the Lost, June 4, 2022.

Rabbi Shelly offers prayers for those killed by gun violence.

Shavuot- Memorial to the Lost with our Or Zarua Torahs

160 T-shirts to local victims of Gun Violence

Rabbi Shelly of Or Zarua and Molly Hicks of Old Haverford Friends with the Memorial to the Lost

So good to be together in person.

So many helping hands.

Rev. Carolyn of Bethel AME offers us a prayer for peace.

Our community youth reading names of gun violence victims in Buffalo, Laguna Woods, Uvalde and Tulsa.


Our Interfaith “Memorial to the Lost” on June 4, 2022, with our partners at Old Haverford Friends Meeting, brought local faith communities together in the holiest of ways. For the Or Zarua community, we were marking the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, the day when Torah was given. In honoring and building a memorial to victims of gun violence, we were all living out the central teaching of Torah, “You shall love your fellow human being as yourself.” We honor the divinity in each person, the idea that each person is created , בצלם אלוהים, B'tzelem Elohim, in the image of G-d.

And as the popular and contemporary song written by Rabbi Menachem Creditor on 9/11 says, “Olam Chesed Yibaneh”, a world of love shall be built. By coming together as various faith communities to erect memorials to victims of gun violence, we do the holy work of “Heeding G-d’s Call,” building a world of justice, peace, and honor for us all.


B'shalom

בשלום–

Rabbi Shelly Barnathan

June 2022