UGA vigil honors Pittsburgh synagogue victims

Members of the UGA community attended a vigil Tuesday on Tate Plaza in memory of the 11 people killed at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh over the weekend. Organized by UGA Hillel, Chabad and other community partners, it enabled people to “share their thoughts and prayers for the victims as we unite to commemorate their lives.”

(photo by Andrew Davis Tucker)

From the AJC...

“It was like a punch in the stomach,” said Eric Robbins, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta. “It’s a very tight-knit community. In the time I was growing up there, I probaly drove by that synagogue no less than 5,000 times. It is literally a mile from my extended family.”

“I would never have guessed that Pittsburgh would be the place where such a heinious act would take place,” said Robbins, who just returned Saturday — the day of the massacre — from a trip to Israel. “That was not just a Jewish neighborhood. It was everyone’s neighborhood.”

On Saturday morning, a shooter opened fire at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood. In addition to the slain, several others were injured; the shooting suspect surrendered to police afterward.