*This letter was sent to the congregation via email on March 19, 2021.

On Tuesday, March 16, eight people were murdered by a gunman in Atlanta. This brutal and horrific attack stands out as one among many, growing instances of violence targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) over the last year. And, as Central member Qian Julie Wang wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed, “though Anti-Asian sentiment has increased during the pandemic, it is woven into the very fabric of this country.”

With broken hearts, we come together in mourning with the AAPI community, those in our Central family, our Jewish family, and beyond. On Thursday, speaking at an interfaith vigil, Rabbi Buchdahl said, “as people of faith we know that our religious imperative goes beyond speaking against hate…God wants us to understand that the fate of the stranger is inextricably tied to our own.” As we prepare to celebrate Passover, our holiday of liberation, we are reminded yet again that we are eternally on that march to the Promised Land, and that our future and our freedom is bound up in the redemption of all people.

Join us tonight as we come together as a Central community in prayer, in grief, and in resolve in the glow of the Shabbat candles.

With love,

Your Central Clergy