3 min read
ByKeren David, Keren David
'Lori Gilbert Kaye had no time to think about what to do when the gunfire started. But even before her death, she was an everyday Jewish hero. '
May 9, 2019 10:29Sixteen years ago, my son and I were nearly shot. A shopping trip to buy my husband’s birthday present could have ended in terrible tragedy.
The shop we’d planned to go to was closed. So we sat outside a nearby café, drinking coffee (me) and apple juice (him). He munched on a cookie. We talked about what we were going to buy for Daddy when the shop was open.
Two men on bicycles sped past us —not very surprising, we were living in Amsterdam at the time, although no one was meant to cycle down pedestrian pathways. They were followed by a policeman, also on a bike. And then — very loud and very close —bang, bang, bang! By the sound of it, a shootout was taking place right around the corner, just a few yards away.
I had a choice. Fall to the ground, and cover my child as best I could? Or run a short distance to a church, where we could shelter behind a buttress? We made it to the church (he, quite happily, still eating his cookie). From there, I could have scooped him up and run away to safety. But I dithered. I hadn’t paid for our drinks and snack. What should I do? Idiotically, I hesitated. This all took seconds. But it could have cost our lives.
People started to emerge. It was all over. One armed robber lay bleeding on the ground. Another had escaped. “What a naughty man,” I told my son, my heart beating hard. We abandoned our present-buying mission. All the way home on the tram we talked about the naughty man and his fight with the police.
I’ve been remembering this incident ever since the horrific events at the Chabad synagogue in Poway, San Diego. There, Lori Gilbert Kaye lost her life. Confronted by gunfire, she didn’t dither, or hesitate as I had. There was no time to think. She followed her instinct, which was to put others before herself. She shielded her rabbi, and lost her life while saving his.
Lori Gilbert Kaye never sought fame. She lived a pleasant life in San Diego with her husband, a doctor and their daughter Hannah. She enjoyed gardening, and was a “news junkie” who loved talking politics (she supported Trump). She’d worked for 12 years on the sales team of a company which makes sports-related promotional products. So far, so ordinary.
At Chabad in Poway, she was the glue that held the community together, the person who knew everyone, who became part of their lives. On the day her mother died, she cooked Shabbat dinner for another family because she’d heard they would be on their own. On the night before her own death, she was with that family, celebrating a graduation. Everyone around the table spoke a few words about the person they were honouring, but it was Lori’s words that made everyone cry.
She was the person who turns up when you’re sick or bereaved, with food for the family. She didn’t just send one birthday or anniversary card, she sent three or four. She baked challah most Fridays — not just for her own family, but for everyone she could think of, leaving loaves in mailboxes and on people’s cars if they weren’t home when she delivered them. She gave gifts, she phoned up, she cared. She was, said one friend, “the kindest person I’ve ever known.’
Her daughter Hannah wore her mother’s pink dress to her burial, to honour Lori’s love of colour, calling her “a rainbow.” She paid tribute to her mother’s loving encouragement: “My best friend, my greatest advocate, my dancing partner, my pumpkin.
“She knew Judaism went beyond the text, beyond the guidance and beyond the synagogue. She also knew Judaism was about who you are as a person, how you treat others, how you respect and show love and kindness to all people. My mother lived her life this way. Everyone was her sister. Everyone was her trusted confidant. Everyone was her friend.”
The more I read about Lori Gilbert Kaye, the more those last words resonate . I know so many Jewish women like her, who derive joy from caring for others, who become family to everyone, who show their love with soup, with challah, with cards and hugs. Lori was like my sister, my cousins, my friends, my aunts and my mother (above all, my mother).
None of us know how or when we will die. Not all of us — thank God — have to be a hero. Lori Gilbert Kaye had no time to think about what to do when the gunfire started. But even before her death, she was an everyday Jewish hero. Our community would be nothing without people like her.