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Los Angeles locals remember the victims of the Paris terror attacks

Seventeen yahrzeit candles were displayed on the bimah at Sinai Temple on Jan. 14, where about 300 people gathered to pay homage to lives lost too soon. Each wick represented a victim of the recent attacks in Paris.
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January 15, 2015

Seventeen yahrzeit candles were displayed on the bimah at Sinai Temple on Jan. 14, where about 300 people gathered to pay homage to lives lost too soon. Each wick represented a victim of the recent attacks in Paris.

“Living in Los Angeles, it’s sometimes easy to forget that we’re part of a greater Jewish people,” Jay Sanderson, president and CEO of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, which organized the event, said in a later interview with the Journal.

But he said the previous week’s events in France — the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and subsequent killings at a kosher supermarket — evoked a sense of “global responsibility” in Jews around the world and that “a memorial service felt like the right response.” 

The intimate service began with opening remarks by Les Bider, Federation board chair. 

“We feel responsible for every Jew, from Los Angeles to Paris to Tel Aviv,” he said.

Immediately following the attacks, Sanderson said he and fellow community leaders started a dialogue with the Jews of Paris. In collaboration with the Jewish Agency for Israel and other Federations across the country, the L.A. Federation helped donate approximately $100,000 to Jewish Parisian institutions.

“It was assessed that the immediate need was to ensure that every Jewish institution [in Paris] was safe and secure,” Sanderson told the Journal.

Bider’s speech was followed by the American and French national anthems, performed by Cantor Tifani Coyot of Temple Isaiah. Axel Cruau, consul general of France in Los Angeles, and David Siegel, consul general of Israel in Los Angeles, also took the stage.

The French diplomat said the best answer to terrorism is staying united and true to our values, and he saluted recent remarks made by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

“He spoke the truth,” Cruau said. “He said that France was at war — not at war with religion, not at war with Islam, but at war with terrorists, jihadists and radicalists of Islam.”

Siegel’ focused on acts of darkness and light. 

“It is a dark day when the simple act of going to work in a magazine, attending a Jewish day school, or shopping at a grocery store becomes an act of courage,” he said. 

But amid this darkness, he continued, there were extraordinary heroes: the French security personnel who rescued hostages; Yohan Cohen, a young Jew who was killed while trying to grab a terrorist’s gun; and Lassana Bathily, a 24-year-old Muslim from Mali, who saved Jews by hiding them in the supermarket freezer.

Continuing the theme, Sinai Rabbi David Wolpe recited the 23rd Psalm. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” After the recitation, Wolpe said, “The most important word in this beautiful psalm is ‘walk.’ … We do not stay there; we grieve, we mourn, but we don’t give up.”

He continued, “Even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will not be afraid because to be afraid is to give into the darkness and our tradition and our faith.”

Sanderson led the candle-lighting ceremony, calling out the names of elected officials and community leaders to light the yahrzeit candles. One by one, individuals, including Los Angeles Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, Assemblyman Richard Bloom, L.A. City Councilman Paul Koretz and Temple Akiba Rabbi Zach Shapiro, walked onto the stage. The room fell silent, filled only with the sound of a lighter catching flame.

After all the candles were lit, Clara-Lisa Kabbaz, school president of Le Lycee Francais de Los Angeles, read the names of the 17 victims. Rabbi Sarah Hronsky of Temple Beth Hillel, Rabbi Morley T. Feinstein of University Synagogue and Rabbi Eli Herscher of Stephen Wise Temple also took part in the service. Cantor Emeritus Joseph Gole of Sinai Temple sang “Hatikvah” and “Oseh Shalom” with the audience as his choir.

Sitting in that audience was Danielle Salusky, a congregant of Kehillat Israel in Pacific Palisades. Born and raised in Paris, she reminisced after the memorial service about her personal connection to the tragedy, which took the lives of two cartoonists she knew.

“I grew up with this magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in Paris and I’ve known them since 1968,” she said. “I knew [Jean] Cabu and [Georges] Wolinski, the two oldest cartoonists from the magazine, and it’s terrible and it’s horrible.”

Salusky and her husband were in Paris not long ago, visiting family. 

“We came back from Paris Monday night and this happened Wednesday morning, and I wanted to go home and I wanted to be there with everybody. I’ve been crying for the whole week,” she said. 

Emotional and silent, she finally added, “So we’re here.”

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