Jews among dead
Seven people were killed and at least 31 others injured when a gunman opened fire at the Independence Day celebration.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) has extended its “heartfelt prayers and sympathy” to those affected by Monday’s mass shooting during a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.
Seven people were killed and at least 31 others injured when a gunman opened fire at the Independence Day celebration.
The AJN understands four Jewish people are among the six victims who have been named.
Jacki Sundheim was the events and b’nei mitzvah coordinator at a nearby Reform synagogue. Irina McCarthy (nee Levberg) was killed alongside her husband Kevin McCarthy, leaving their two-year-old son Aiden orphaned. Katherine Goldstein and Stephen Straus were the other Jewish victims named.
The suburb has a large Jewish community that makes up a third of its population of 30,000. The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band, a local Jewish music group, were playing on a float as bystanders begin to scatter, screaming.
ECAJ co-CEO Peter Wertheim noted that Highland Park “has a high concentration of Jewish residents” and that the klezmer band was playing when the shooting began.
“It is too early to comment on the motivations of the alleged shooter, but the results are horrific,” he said.
“We send our heartfelt prayers and sympathy to the families of all those who were killed, and wish the injured a full and speedy recovery. We stand in solidarity with the entire American people whose national day of celebration has been violated so brutally by this latest shocking incident of gun violence.”
A Chicago Chabad rabbi said the shooter entered his synagogue and was asked to leave during Passover this year.
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