Jewish Culture Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Rabbi Discusses The Importance Of Lighting The Dark This Hanukkah

The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah began at sundown on Thursday, Dec. 7 and ends at sundown Friday, Dec.15. Also known as “The Festival of Lights,” the celebration has taken on a new meaning in the context of the war in Gaza.

Reporter Chris Schulz spoke with Rabbi Zalman Gurevitch of the Rohr Chabad Jewish Student Center at West Virginia University on the first night of Hanukkah.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Schulz: Can you tell me a little bit about your congregation here at WVU?

Gurevitch: We’re part of the worldwide Chabad Lubavitch movement. The movement was founded almost 250 years ago. In America, it was established in 1940. We have about 5,000 Chabad houses around the world; on college campuses, there’s about 300.

A Chabad center in any given city would be there to meet the Jewish needs of the Jewish community in that city. On a college campus, it’s the same idea. It’s just we’re hyper-focused on serving college students. We’re also the only Chabad in West Virginia, so our responsibility covers any Jewish need in the entire state. Sometimes we use the U.S. Postal Service or whatever it is to meet those needs, I can’t always go in person. But that’s what we try to do.

Schulz: Tell me a little bit about the Hanukkah holiday, some of the history of it and what it means to you.

Gurevitch: Hanukkah is not a biblical holiday. Jews have been celebrating Hanukkah for about 2,000 to 2,300 years. This was during the time of the Second Temple, while the Jews kind of had autonomy, they didn’t have their own king. And the Syrian-Greeks had a cultural war against Jewish people. It wasn’t a physical war, they weren’t trying to chase the Jews out of Israel. They weren’t trying to kill the Jews. They wanted to kill the Jewish culture.

There was a group of priests called Maccabees and they set out to fight the Syrian-Greeks. And miraculously, they won. The day they won, they came to the temple and in the temple, there was a candelabra, called a menorah. And in order to light a temple, they had to use oil. This oil had to be oil that was never touched by a person that was impure. Now the Syrian-Greeks, when they came to the temple, remember, their goal was a cultural war. So they didn’t steal the oil, or ruin the oil, they just opened up all the jugs of oil, which made it impure so that priests couldn’t use it to light the menorah. Finally, they found one little jug, and that little jug only had enough oil to last for one night. Nevertheless, they had faith and they lit the menorah that night, and it took them eight days to get new oil. During all those eight days, the candelabra remained lit.

So to remember that, we light candles for eight days. We start off with one candle the first night and then we go up to eight days. Interestingly, the candelabra in the temple only had seven candles. But now we have a candelabra with eight candles to celebrate the miracle.

Schulz: What does Hanukkah mean today in the modern context? Why celebrate and recognize the eight days that the little bit of oil lasted?

Gurevitch: So Hanukkah is unique amongst all the other Jewish customs and practices. Your neighbor might be Jewish, and you will never know. There’s nothing that your neighbor has to do that will make you find out he’s Jewish. He can certainly be completely religious, ultra orthodox, and you’ll never know.

Hanukkah is the only time when the obligation and fulfillment of the commandment is by lighting the menorah in a place where the public can see it. The idea is that we’re recognizing the great miracle that God did for us, and we’re recognizing it in a public way. It helps us realize that just like God did miracles for us, back in those days, it was five people against the big army, so today, God will continue to do miracles for us. And that will come out victorious. And we will defeat all our enemies from a spiritual perspective and from a physical perspective.

I think Hanukkah has even more meaning this year, when we’re in one of the darkest times for the Jewish people, the idea that little bit of light spells a lot of darkness. Our focus always has to be to add on light. You can’t chase away darkness with sticks and stones, it’s just about adding in being kind, being good, and doing the right thing, and then the world around you will be a better place. So the focus should be on adding acts of goodness and kindness, and that makes the entire world a better place.

Schulz: What does this opportunity for community mean both generally, and more specifically, as you were saying, in the political context that we find ourselves now?

Gurevitch: So I think for many new Jewish students, or Jewish community members, a lot of them their Judaism was dormant for a while. The events of Oct. 7 kind of served as a wake up call. When someone hates you so much that they’re willing to do such horrendous acts against you, that makes you think, “What do I stand for? Who am I?”

And I’ve seen students that haven’t shown up in years, or community members that haven’t been involved, they’re now getting involved, because they realize that there’s something to be part of, they want to be part of the light and do something positive. So that makes it even more meaningful than previous years.

Schulz: I know that the Muslim student community has been vocal at times with regards to the situation in Gaza. Has there been any dialogue that you’re aware of between the two communities? Have you as a faith leader reached out in any way?

Gurevitch: After the Oct. 7 attacks, there were Muslim students who reached out to me and expressed their support. There are people in the community that are kind of bridging that gap. There is no dialogue with individual Muslims. When I meet Muslims, and the ones I know make sure they know that I don’t have enemies based on religion.

That being said, as a matter of principle, we will not engage in any activities with any organization that is not willing to condemn Hamas, and not willing to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. If you can’t say yes to those two questions, then I feel like I’ll be betraying my people if we did something together with that organization.

I would talk to any individual, as an individual to individual. There’s no one that I wouldn’t talk to. But as an organization, I think we have to set that standard. I mean, I can’t imagine a Jewish organization sitting down with a Nazi group during the Holocaust, you know, it’s just not something I can do.

Schulz: Will you all continue to light the menorah here, in front of the Mountainlair, or is that something that you will continue to do privately?

Gurevitch: To fulfill the commandment the menorah has to be lit with a candle of wax, or oil, with something which can be consumed, not with electric which is consumed but it’s not, to symbolize the miracle that lasted for eight days.

You’re supposed to use candle or oil. So we are giving out these little Hanukkah kits that include 44 candles and a tin menorah for our students to light when they get home. We’re going to have the menorah set up in the Mountainlair with electric bulbs, but that will just be symbolic for the rest of the holiday. So this is a one time thing we do in public, and then we give out the menorah so they can do it at home.

Schulz: Is there anything about the next week that you are looking forward to or most looking forward to?

Gurevitch: For me, Hanukkah has many lessons to it. My favorite lesson and what I look forward to is that on the first day, we only light one candle. And on the second night, we only light two candles. And then we have to wait until the eighth night to get up to the eighth candle. You’re just sitting around the candles and watching the candles burn, it gives us certain calmness.

It also teaches us a lesson that every person is always trying to become better. Sometimes we wake up in the morning, we decide that’s it, we’re going to turn our life around. And then we only last for a day or two. So Hanukkah teaches us that when you want to go from darkness to light, you have to take it in steps. If you did one candle today, do two candles tomorrow, now we can establish a lasting impact of change that will last.

I like taking that message away from Hanukkah. And especially with New Year’s, everyone’s making resolutions and big stuff, and this kind of keeps us in check and helps us make meaningful changes.

Schulz: Do you have any thoughts about the role that Hanukkah has taken on as a bridge to Judaism for the larger population, even though as you said it’s not a biblical holiday? The outsized role of Hanukkah, compared to what it actually means to the Jewish community?

Gurevitch: Like I said, Hanukkah is the only holiday where to fulfill the obligation of the holiday, you need to go out there, you need to light your menorah in a place where the public can see it. I think it symbolizes that we all have the ability to add on light. Even for a person that’s not from the Jewish faith, when they see the menorah, and they see how every night, it’s adding another light and another light, it teaches us that we’re all created in the image of God, every human being. And as such, we each have the ability to make the world a better place.

As many are aware, Judaism is a non proselytizing religion, we’re not trying to convert anyone. But there is a message, there are the seven Noahide laws, which are Seven Commandments that are for all mankind, and by following those commandments, and recognizing that there’s a creator that created this world by divine providence and is guiding us and is watching over us, that enables us to make the right decisions.

Think about it, if you’re doing a business deal, and you have an opportunity to cheat and make an extra dollar, nobody will know, a lot of times you can see a situation where no one will ever catch you. But if you know that there’s a God that created you and he’s responsible to provide for you, then you know that you can do it in an honest way. That will bring peace to the world, not just peace, but also, everyone will feel accomplished, fulfilled and purposeful life. So I think the message of Hanukkah, to the wider community is that we all have the ability and obligation to add in light.

Schulz: Is there anything that I haven’t prompted you to talk about, anything that you feel is important?
Gurevitch: The one thing I would add is that I have met a lot of people in the general community, they reached out to me and said there they are very sad about what’s going on in Israel and they want to support the Jewish community. And you know, sometimes I’ll be shopping and people will walk up to me and say “Hey Rabbi, we support the community in Israel,” and I want you to know that it’s really meaningful for me. Sometimes it’s awkward, I don’t know you don’t know me, but you just walking up to me, it is really meaningful. And we do appreciate your support. Sometimes in a place like West Virginia it could feel lonely to be Jewish, and by speaking up, you create a positive environment. So, for all those that reached out to me, thank you very much.

Historians, Local Jewish Congregation Recognize Civil War Passover Feast In Southern W.Va.

Soldiers came together during the conflict for a Passover feast known as a Seder. Reporter Shepherd Snyder spoke with Joseph Golden, Jewish researcher and secretary of the Temple Beth El congregation in Beckley, along with Drew Gruber of Civil War Trails, about this celebration’s historical significance.

Civil War historians are recognizing a unique local celebration that happened during the conflict in the wilds of southern West Virginia near what’s now known as Fayetteville, when 20 Jewish Union soldiers came together during the conflict for a Passover feast known as a Seder.

Reporter Shepherd Snyder spoke with Joseph Golden, Jewish researcher and secretary of the Temple Beth El congregation in Beckley, along with Drew Gruber of Civil War Trails, about this celebration’s historical significance.

The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.

Snyder: Starting off with the main topic of the interview, and for our listeners who might not know, can you give me some background on what a Passover Seder is? Can you talk a little bit about the holiday and the event?

Golden: Passover Seder is a ceremony that you usually have at home, but you can have it at your congregational headquarters, that commemorates the Exodus from Egypt by the ancient Hebrews. They were slaves to the Egyptians for hundreds of years. And as the Bible has told us, Moses answered the call of God, to lead the ancient Israelites out of Egypt and onto the land of Canaan, which they got to in about 40 years.

So for centuries, the Seder has been celebrated as the beginning of Passover, and Passover is that holiday commemorating the Exodus. And there are many ways of celebrating Passover. There is usually a text, which we call Haggadah. And there are many different variations on the Haggadah, it’s not a deeply religious text, it’s more of one that tells the story, has songs, has readings and such and you go through it to various degrees at your Seder. “Seder” itself means a set formula of how to do something. So there’s different steps along the way in doing these commemorations.

Gruber: Speaking of a set way to do things, one of the most fascinating parts of this project for me was thinking about the Seder dinner items and the symbology behind each one of those items, and how the soldiers from this regiment had to adapt the traditional menu to the bounty that’s available in Appalachia in the spring of 1862.

Snyder: I do want to circle back to that here in a second. But before we get to that, I do want to ask if the both of you could provide some historical context on this Seder in particular. Why is something like this interesting in the context of the Civil War and in the context of West Virginia history?

Golden: It’s basically a footnote through the movement of troops and the battles that took place. But it’s also an insight into the various, diverse members who entered the Union army from various backgrounds. Apparently, 23 percent of the Union Army were foreign born. Now, some of these Jews may have been foreign born, some may have been first generation here in the United States. But it was an example of something that’s little known. There were Germans, and there were Irish, large contingents, and there were approximately 7,000 Jews who were in the Union army. And there were also about 3,000 estimated Jews in the Confederate army, mostly from South Carolina.

But for the Jews to be there away from their usual communities, [the purpose of this ceremony was] to bond and to commemorate something that is basic in their culture and traditions of having a Seder. And they were in winter quarters, there was some guerrilla activities around it, but no major battles or confrontations. So they had more time on their hands. And so they decided to ask permission to get together and to go through this ritual.

And to remember, they would use, from the Seder, “Always remember that you were slaves in Egypt,” that’s a basic expression. So it commemorates their knowledge and their awareness of slavery, or at least what it meant Biblically.

Gruber: For us at Civil War Trails, although the story may be a footnote in history, it’s exceptional. And as much as we see in this dark period in our nation’s history, this beautiful bright spot [is also there]. And it’s not just these individual soldiers, but it is the community in the area and the greater Jewish community at large that sort of enables this bright spot and offers up a moment of peace and beauty and what is otherwise a pretty terrible season in American history.

Snyder: I want to dive a little bit more into how or what the significance of this event was to the soldiers themselves during wartime. Why was this important to them, how was it important? And how does that historical significance translate to the present day?

Golden: I’d say it was on different levels. We have [Private] Joseph Joel’s account. And in his account, he doesn’t really go into how far afield these Jewish members came from, but they’re from Ohio, and most likely they came out of the cities of Columbus and Cincinnati, and possibly Cleveland, and maybe some smaller cities. They were young men, Joseph Joel was 17 or 19 when this took place. He was born in 1844, is what’s recorded. And it’s sharing a compatriotship. It’s sharing a cultural observance that’s deep into their childhood and their families. And it also, in his relation to when he wrote it down, some of these people, some of these men had died. He himself was wounded at South Mountain.

So by recording it, perhaps he reignites that sense, our togetherness, compatriotship, sharing, that may resonate with those who survived, and perhaps the families of those who didn’t survive. And it reflects the importance of other people hearing about it, Jewish people hearing about this, and reflecting on the importance of Passover to them as well. That you didn’t need to be in a metropolitan area or city area, to acknowledge Passover and to celebrate it and to share in that.

Gruber: For our team, interacting with this story, highlights the fact that as historians have focused on the Civil War, they’ve often focused, at least for the last 150 years, on the military maneuvers, and sort of the macabre idea of how many soldiers were killed at this engagement or how they got there, and what the results of that individual battle were. But every time we have an opportunity to work with communities and they share the stories of their soldiers who came through their community, it is these bright moments that the soldiers choose to recognize in their letters and their diaries. They don’t go into a huge amount of detail about how a battle went down or occurred, they’ll usually refer to a friend who was lost.

But these bright spots of interacting with somebody who would otherwise be the enemy on a picket post and exchanging a newspaper is a bright moment for them to share because it’s, again, that bright, peaceful spot in this war. And I think it’s Joel, who comments in the latter part of the 1860s, he says something to the effect of like, there’s no other occasion in his life that gives him more pleasure than remembering that 1862 Passover. And that should tell you something about this soldier who’s wounded at a major engagement and sees multiple campaigns, but this is the moment that gives him the most pleasure to recall.

Golden: I would say that Joel’s rendition of the event is analogous to a letter home to your folks. But here it’s a letter home to all the Jews in the country at that time, tying them to something that they can relate to and they can cherish.

Snyder: Can you tell me again who Joel is and his significance in all this?

Golden: He was a private in the Ohio 23rd Volunteer Infantry, along with these other compatriots, and their commander was at that time, Major [later President] Rutherford B. Hayes. And they had gone into western Virginia, because West Virginia was not yet a state, and had come up the Kanawha River they had fought at the Battle of Droop Mountain [in Pocahontas County]. Then they crossed the Kanawha River to go into winter quarters at Fayetteville, or the village of Fayette; it was just a few houses, apparently, at that time. And so there are bivouacs there. They went on to be in battles, going south into Wytheville, Virginia. And then later, in September of 1862, fought at the Battle of South Mountain [near Boonsboro, Maryland], which preceded Antietam by about three days.

Snyder: I want to also talk about the celebration and the actual events of the Seder itself. I know you mentioned the dinner items that might be unique to a Civil War, West Virginia 1860s Seder, I was wondering if you could shed a little bit more light about that kind of thing.

Gruber: I’ll leave that up to Dr. Golden. He and my coworker Victoria sort of cracked the code of the traditional Seder menu and then how the soldiers adapted that menu for being in the wilds of West Virginia. But most excitingly for us, working with some private collectors and the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museum, we were able to put on the sign [commemorating the event in Fayetteville] a photo of Joseph Joel and a photo of a sutler token. So a sutler is a shopkeeper who’s moving with each regiment during the Civil War. And there’s a token from the sutler of the 23rd Ohio Infantry, the same regiment that is represented by the soldiers here. And it’s possible that this sutler helps these soldiers sort of create this Seder menu.

Golden: The food has symbolic meaning. The main one that most people know about is matzah, which is unleavened bread, it’s almost like a large cracker. And it commemorates that Hebrews were leaving Egypt without time to bake their bread and let it rise to be leavened, so they just had to put out the water and the flour and such and let the sun bake it and move on.

Then there are bitter herbs, which are to symbolize the bitterness of slavery. Traditionally, in today’s age, we use horseradish, but they went foraging for bitter herbs in their environment and came up with something. They didn’t say what it was, but they said it was very powerful, and it could have been ramps, it could have been something else.

There’s four cups of wine that commemorate certain parts of the order of the Seder meal. They couldn’t find wine, but they found cider, so they had at least a keg of cider. There’s something called charoset, which is a mixture of apples and nuts and cinnamon wine, which was supposed to be symbolic of the mortar that went between the large stones that the Hebrews had to work on. They couldn’t find that, so instead they had a brick.

There was a shank bone that commemorates the Paschal lamb that was sacrificed just before the Exodus took place, but they couldn’t find that, so they had chicken.

And usually there’s something that’s green, representing springtime, but I think they use the herbs that they had for that. I think they had some eggs as well, and eggs are symbolic of life and symbolic of Spring.

Gruber: We’ve found a lot of people are really intrigued by this blending of cultures, all the things that we know and promote today as the beauty that is Appalachian foodways. And how this intersects with these Jewish traditions is, I think, just very invigorating, and enamoring for people to think about happening and what was otherwise sort of the wilds of West Virginia at the time.

Snyder: I also want to talk a little bit about faith. You hear a lot of these stories about soldiers during wartime coming together to celebrate their faiths. I think the most famous example, or the one that comes to mind for me, immediately, is the World War I Christmas truce. But I was wondering if either of you could speak a little about why and how religious faith matters to soldiers during wartime and why that’s so important.

Gruber: I’ll start by saying I’m by no means an expert in this. And I can just speak generally to this concept that throughout the Civil War, especially as the military campaigns wind down and you sort of hit the winter periods, there are multiple revivals in camps, both north and south. And those revivals run the gamut of religious perspectives. So we often see that once the military campaigns sort of quiet down a little bit, that soldiers will turn back to these things and also chat with each other about their faith.

Golden: I think that in conflicts facing possible death, just about everybody gets in touch with their spiritual self. And whatever faith, tradition they come out of, they turn to that to help maintain their spiritual connection and their sense of purpose in the conflict. Both the Confederacy and the Union invoked God as the protector, you might say. When this was mentioned to Abraham Lincoln by someone, Lincoln said, “The real matter is, are we on God’s side?” That’s how Lincoln phrased it, but I think in military conflicts, you turn to your deeply ingrained religious experience that you’ve had growing up and rely on that to maintain your faith that your role is righteous.

Snyder: How are you recognizing this Passover Seder today? Can you get a little bit into how this project came about and how it’s being recognized?

Gruber: Absolutely. So it was about two years ago this month that I got an email from Dr. Golden that said, “I hear your organization is interested in this story that took place in our backyard.” And that was in response to me calling some folks in and around the Kanawha River Valley and saying, “Do you know anything more about this story?” My coworker Victoria and I had sort of stumbled across it just doing some reading about the average lives of Civil War soldiers. And we were just simply enamored by it, especially given the context of everything that’s happening in America right now, as far as antisemitism is concerned.

So for Civil War Trails, we don’t really pursue stories per se. But this one was just really evocative to us and stuck with the team here. So we began by making some calls in and around the greater Charleston area, and in a really beautiful turn of events was introduced to Dr. Golden, who, you know, we consider to be the expert on this topic.

And that’s not where it ended, working with the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museum in Ohio, who connected us with other collectors, other archives, we started interacting with people who’ve lived in the area who have done some amateur archaeology, who were able to find examples of the unique uniforms that Joseph Joel and his comrades were wearing, and through both oral history and amateur archaeology, pinpointed the location of their camp. And it’s very much in fitting with the 1862 Passover itself, it’s very much been the situation where the community has come together from all walks of life and all perspectives to bring this to fruition, 161 years later. So it’s been a beautiful project for us, for our team to be part of.

Golden: I first encountered the narrative in about 2001, and someone heard that I was from West Virginia, and told me about the story that they had read, and sent me a copy of it and read through it. And then I started sharing this at the usual place where my wife and I go for Seder, with some friends who live in Fayetteville. And there were about 10 to 14 people around the Passover table, and we read through it, and it brought a little bit more home to it, that we were in the same locale as them, separated by all these years but I could appreciate the setting and the experience. And so we continue to read portions of this at each Seder.

Snyder: Why is it worth recognizing these diverse, off the beaten path events in history, or celebrating these voices that we might not typically hear from in more general history books?

Golden: I think it personalizes our connection to the people who were there, the troops, the men who are fighting, and the areas in which they went through. By knowing these people as people, it’s not just about a bit of data. It’s allowing us to empathize and to learn from them personally.

Gruber: For us, the stories are about that particular place, standing in that moment. And as Dr. Golden said so eloquently, it’s being able to empathize with these people who seem so far away and realizing that they’re not too much different than you and I.

Snyder: Did you have anything else worth mentioning or any closing thoughts we didn’t get to before we wrap this up?

Golden: I think there are many other stories out there from people from other nationalities and religious backgrounds. Jews were quite different because of their religion. But there are stories of Irish and African American and German, and even some French that emphasize how their particular experience was shaped by their cultural upbringing.

Gruber: My hope is that other communities see this community step up with a story that maybe isn’t recognized as a traditional Civil War story, and they will be sort of empowered and emboldened to want to add their story to this collective narrative. And in part, we’ve already seen this through two discussions in western Maryland and Tennessee about Union soldiers who are Muslim. And that is my hope with this project, that not only can we lift up the story of Dr. Golden’s congregation and the story of these men who gave thanks in 1862, but also encourage other communities to step up and add their story to the collective Civil War narrative.

Rabbi Reflects on Drug Epidemic, Gun Violence, and 170 Years of Faith in Wheeling

Wheeling’s Jewish community got together over the weekend to celebrate 170 years of faith and service in the Northern Panhandle. Rabbi Joshua Lief grew up in Wheeling’s congregation. He says despite challenges throughout the region, he’s proud to be a part of a legacy of resilient, caring people with deep, multi-generational roots in the Mountain State.

On Becoming Rabbi at Temple Shalom

When I was a child growing up here in Wheeling, my family were, and in fact still are, members of Temple Shalom. And we lived right down the street. I used to come to services every Sabbath and Sunday school and youth group events. This was my home congregation.

Rabbi Lief grew up in Wheeling, went away, and says he’s part of a wave of people excited to return and hopeful about contributing to the betterment of the Ohio Valley.

When I graduated from high school, I went off to college, and then off to the seminary graduate program after college, and I served a small congregation in Chattanooga, Tennessee for the first five years out of the seminary. And then I was called to be the senior rabbi at a very large congregation in Florida for about a decade.

During that time, all those years of college and graduate school and serving other congregations, our congregation here at Temple Shalom has an associate member program where, for a very tiny fee, people who used to live in Wheeling stay connected and get the monthly newsletter. And I did that, I paid the fee.

In my “outsider’s view,” if you will, the congregation was shrinking slowly over time. It was less than half the size that it was when I was a child. And Wheeling had shrunk over time — the congregation had become small enough that there was even a question as to whether having a full-time rabbi was worthwhile. But they wanted a full-time rabbi.

This community is still very much a vibrant Jewish community and needed more attentive service. When I read in the bulletin that Wheeling was going to go searching for a new rabbi, I immediately called one of the members of the search committee, who happened to be my father and said, “What do you think the congregation would think about me coming home and being the rabbi here in Wheeling?”

I have never stopped caring about this community. It’s always been my home. Our family is a multi-generation temple family just like many of our other families. And I like to think that I get to help make it an even better place for all its citizens.

On 170 Years of History

We have a hallway that leads from the social hall to our library. And hanging in the hallway are all of the confirmation class photos from the past hundred plus years. We have them all the way back to the 19-teens. My picture hangs on that wall, as does my sister’s, as do many of our friends, as do some of their parents, grandparents and great grandparents and even great, great grandparents. And it’s amazing to see oneself as part of a very long, ongoing tradition of Jewish life in this community.

I’m very familiar with the history of our temple, not only because I’ve read our extensive archives, but because I know those family names. When we think about Wheeling as a city, certainly all credit goes to the Zanes and the McCollochs and the other Scottish Presbyterians who were here in colonial times in western Virginia, when it was still a colony. And they are our founders no question. But the city boomed in the 1840s and 50s because of the influx of German immigrants, German Lutherans, German Catholics, and German Jews. Those German immigrants in the 1840s and 50s made this city come alive with business and industry and culture and arts. It’s inestimable the difference that they made.

Rabbi Lief peruses images of generations of Jewish community members on display in the hallways of Temple Shalom, in Wheeling, W.Va.

We look around Wheeling, and we see the effects those families made on our town. There wouldn’t be a Wheeling Park without the Sonneborns. There wouldn’t be a Good Zoo at Oglebay without the Goods. The effects of those families, not just in the naming rights of things, but the behind the scenes effort of the downtown business community of engaged citizenry to transform this community for the better, is an ongoing trend.

Wheeling is celebrating 250 years. Temple Shalom for the last 170 of those years has been deeply invested in making the city the best place that it could be. It continues, we’re still very much engaged. We seek partnerships all the time with our friends of other faiths. We connect with our friends at Catholic Charities, to staff their soup kitchen and to stock their shelves with canned goods from our food drives and to give gifts to the kids on their Christmas kids list. It’s not our holiday, but it’s our friends and neighbors who are in need, so we partner with them. We partner with Wheeling Health Right. We can’t run a clinic here at temple alone, but we can certainly support the efforts of those who are. And that’s what our members have been doing for 170 years. We continue those efforts today.

On the Substance Use Disorder Epidemic

It is truly an epidemic with the fallout from pain medication abuse, which of course segues into heroin abuse. It’s devastating. It touches the lives of all of us. Temple Shalom has been very proud to be part of the drug take back efforts for the District Attorney. With the West Virginia Council of Churches we participate in the Day of Hope. With Joelle Richter from the Mozart Evangelical Lutheran Church, we lead the service for those struggling with addiction last year down at St. Matthews Episcopal Church downtown. I personally sit on Youth Services Systems Impact Coalition, trying to stem the tide of drug addiction. I also sit on the board of the Unity Center, trying to give hope and assistance to those seeking recovery.

On a practical level, one of our congregants, Lisa Allen at Ziegenfelder’s is renowned nationally for her efforts and those of her team members. When they’re putting their values into their employment hiring practices, they’re doing more than just making frozen treats. They’re making our community a better place. Those are our Jewish values that they’re living where the rubber meets the road.

On Gun Violence

Our congregation was touched quite intimately and directly by the mass shooting at the Tree of Life congregation, just a year ago in Pittsburgh. When the enormity of the experience became clear to me, as a rabbi, I thought to myself, we’re going to have to do something to give people a space in which to grieve. On Sunday afternoon, October the 28th, we had an overflowing crowd of over 500 people. That’s more people then who are members of our congregation. It was the whole city turned out. Everybody came from all different religious traditions, public safety personnel, elected officials, friends, neighbors, and total strangers.

In my sermon that afternoon, I said we could have closed the doors and lock them and drew the window shades closed and hid in fear. Or we could open the doors. And that was our response — not to hide, but to be even more open, and to say, we value being part of this close-knit community, and a hateful person and their evil actions are not going to change our core values. In fact, it’s our core values of openness and inclusive and welcoming, being good hosts like Abraham, our ancestor in the Bible welcoming in the stranger in the guest. That’s going to be our answer.

Could Wheeling ever be touched by such a tragedy? Of course. I don’t think that folks in Dayton and El Paso this weekend thought that their communities would be the next site of a mass shooting, but they were. Could we? Sure. And would we respond in the same way? Absolutely. Not by closing ourselves off from strangers, but by welcoming in the stranger and making them our friend. Terrorists want to terrorize us. And we have to rise above the fear that is quite reasonable. Intentional inflicting of pain upon somebody else is not acceptable in our society. And we’re going to respond not with hatred, but with more love, with more kindness with more grace. That’s the only weapon I have in my arsenal. And we’re going to deploy it as often as we can.

VIDEO: A W.Va. Community Responds to Religious Violence of Past and Present

One Appalachian community is responding to violence of the past and present targeted at religious groups.

At their annual reading of the names ceremony, the B’Nai Shalom Synagogue in Huntington, West Virginia, brought together community members in a ceremony to remember victims of the Holocaust.

Just a few blocks away, community activists gathered to also honor the victims of the Easter suicide bombings in Sri Lanka.

The remembrances came the same day as the latest attack on the Jewish community in America– a shooting at a California synagogue.

Bobby Lee messer is homegrown West Virginia videographer and producer. He grew up in Huntington, as did his father and his father before him and so on. After living in various towns and cities long far west of the Ohio River for more than 20 years, Messer has returned to his hometown and is pleased as punch to be covering the people and landscape of his home state.

W.Va. Rabbi: Acts of Kindness Can Help America 'Weaponize Goodness'

The shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue last weekend sent shockwaves across the country and in West Virginia. Victor Urecki, the rabbi at B’Nai Jacob Synagogue in Charleston, shared his thoughts on moving ahead in the wake of the tragedy.

“Particularly for the Jewish people, this has been a very difficult week. We feel broken. We feel no longer safe,” he said. “Maybe we were lulled into a sense of American security that America is finally gonna be the different place. I think for America, it doesn’t feel like this is us. This is not who we are, as Americans.”

“I’m not sure how we get out of this, except I’ve been thinking a lot about what maybe has brought us to this place. Evil and goodness are part of our human experience. There are evil acts, there are good acts. There are evil people, there are good people. And a lot of times we have both within us. What has maybe generated this feeling that this is changing is evil words and thoughts have been weaponized. Evil acts that have pretty much been kept in the dark corners of America are now much more open because, again, words have been weaponized.”

“What gives me hope is I think what we can do is learn to weaponize goodness. And what I’ve noticed throughout the pain and the suffering that the Jewish communities have gone through in America is the outpouring of love, incredible acts, not just of people picking up the phone or emailing or private messaging, but simple acts of kindness that we’re experiencing here in West Virginia.”

Urecki described one act of kindness last Sunday, during a memorial service at the synagogue. A family left a bouquet of yellow flowers on the front steps. During the evening, more flowers appeared outside the synagogue.

He also spoke about an anonymous message someone wrote in chalk outside the synagogue in Huntington that read, “You are loved.”

That, he said is “the simple act of goodness that needs to be weaponized.”

WVU, Morgantown Communities Show Support, Fight Hate in Wake of Pittsburgh Tree of Life Shooting

Hundreds of people gathered at a vigil held at West Virginia University to honor the victims of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and offer a message of both vigilance and healing to the Jewish community, both in Morgantown and around the world.

WVU students and staff, and Morgantown community members braved chilly temperatures and the threat of rain to stand shoulder to shoulder Monday, Oct. 29, in front of Woodburn Hall, on WVU’s downtown campus.

The “Stronger Than Hate” vigil was put together by Jewish student leaders at WVU.

“You hear about all these shootings and they’re across the country,” said Zack Levenson, a senior political science major at WVU, president of the Rohr Chabad Jewish Student Center on campus and vice president of Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi. “And then it’s your community and it’s an hour away. I’ve driven by that synagogue and it’s the least I could do, the least we could do as organizers, to support Jewish students on campus and the Squirrel Hill community.”

Levenson said the student community wanted to create a space to mourn the 11 people gunned down Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, but also to share the message that hate will not win.

Participants, some bearing homemade signs naming the victims, some that simply read “Love,” lit flickering candles in honor of those killed and injured.

Attendees of a vigil at WVU hold candles to honor those who were killed at a shooting Saturday, October 27, 2018 at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Some of the speakers held personal connections with many of the Tree of Life synagogue victims. Pamela Murray, vice-chair of the department of pediatrics/adolescent medicine at WVU, knew many of those killed.

“People can be incredibly special and generous,” Murray said of those who were killed. “But hate is awful and hate speech can be evil. In this case, guns were the agent of this hatred that destroyed lives and has had an impact on a very large community.”

She and others noted that the Jewish community has long faced persecution, but data collected by the Anti-Defamation League finds anti-Semitic incidents are becoming more common. The nonprofit said incidents spiked nearly 60 percent in 2017, compared to 2016 numbers, the largest single-year increase on record and the second highest number reported since ADL started tracking incident data in the 1970s.

For some, Saturday’s violence hit very close to home. Judy and Bob Danenberg are members of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. They were out of town when the shooting occurred, but told the crowd they knew many of those who were killed.

Bob and Judy Danenberg, members of the Tree of Life congregation in Pittsburgh, address hundreds of people gathered a vigil in front of Woodburn Hall at WVU’s downtown campus on Monday, October 29, 2018.

“We as the Jewish community are mourning in Squirrel Hill right now,” she said, fighting tears. “Having you here tonight shows solidarity. It has been the reaching out of all kinds of people, Jewish, non-Jewish, Muslim, all over the world that has been reaching out to us. It is the strength that we all need together.”

Danenberg added that in the face of hate, it is more important than ever to hug those you love.

“Spread good, spread love, spread joy — not the message of hate,” she said.