“It definitely needs miracles … because the circumstances are very, very grim,” Many members of an Orthodox synagogue are among those missing in the collapse of a condominium tower in Surfside, Florida. At least four people have died, with 159 missing. https://t.co/8sdmJkj1J1
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 25, 2021
Back in 1995, I covered the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building for The Oklahoman.
To many of us in Oklahoma, images of the partially collapsed Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, seem “gut-wrenchingly similar” to the Murrah Building rubble 26 years ago.
Even the slow, excruciating search for victims — as loved ones pray for a miracle — stirs tearful reminders.
More than a week after the Miami-area condo building’s collapse, the fear is no longer that the missing won’t be found alive. It’s that “they may not be found at all, making it harder to know when and how to grieve those lost,” report the Wall Street Journal’s Alicia A. Caldwell, Valerie Bauerlein and Daniela Hernandez.
“The grief here is really deep,” Rabbi Ariel Yeshurun of the Skylake Synagogue in North Miami tells the Journal. “As a rabbi, you deal with grief. But not like this.”
The disaster “has rocked Surfside’s Jewish community, a cohesive and interconnected group mirrored in just a few places in the United States,” explain the Washington Post’s Laura Reiley and Brittany Shammas.
Religion News Service’s Yonat Shimron interviews Rabbi Sholom Lipskar, who leads the Shul of Bal Harbour, a synagogue that takes up nearly an entire city block less than a mile from the Champlain Towers.
More to read:
• ‘Now is not the time to ask why’: Surfside’s Jewish community ushers in somber Shabbat (by Marie-Rose Sheinerman, Carli Teproff and Samantha J. Gross, Miami Herald)
• Jewish community prays for miracles after condo collapse (by Luis Andres Henao, Terry Spencer and Kelli Kennedy, Associated Press)
• Miami-area churches pray for miracles, minister to rescue teams after condo collapse (by Kate Shellnutt, Christianity Today)
• ‘He went through hell’: Relocated widower among the missing (by Adriana Gomez Licon, AP)
• ‘Art of listening’: U.S. Chaplain Corps comforts Surfside families, first responders (by Marie-Rose Sheinerman, Miami Herald)
It was perfect timing for a rite of rejuvenation: In their first big gathering in more than a year, devotees gathered near Pittsburgh to celebrate the rededication of the nation’s oldest major Hindu temple and pray for continued recovery from the pandemic. https://t.co/xtiSxG2ePn
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 28, 2021
Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads
1. At landmark U.S. Hindu temple, a timely rite of rejuvenation: Associated Press religion writer Peter Smith teams with visual journalist Jessie Wardarski to cover what Smith describes as “a once-in-12-years festival near Pittsburgh at the oldest major Hindu temple in the U.S.”
The multimedia feature by Smith and Wardarski is exceptional.
2. ‘A glimmer of hope’: New leadership for Southern Baptists offers an opportunity for racial reconciliation: The Montgomery Advertiser’s Krista Johnson travels to Mobile, Alabama, to profile the Rev. Ed Litton, the Southern Baptist Convention’s newly elected president.
In other SBC news, Litton faces scrutiny over whether he plagiarized material in his sermons, as Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana and the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner report.
CONTINUE READING: “ ‘As A Rabbi, You Deal With Grief. But Not Like This’: Condo Disaster Rocks Jewish Community,” by Bobby Ross, Jr., at Religion Unplugged.
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