The faculty of the American Jewish University / Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies is grieved and angered at the horrific shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego. We stand together with the Muslim community in their grief and pain. 

Our nation is broken when the climate of hatred and fear can bring two children to take weapons of war and messages of hate and kill three men at a house of worship. 

Nationally, hate crimes are rising. Our inability to see the Other, and to lean into disagreement while recognizing that each person was created in the image of the Divine, is a failure of our civic culture. As faculty at a faith based institution of higher learning we are committed to inspiring our students to choose discernment, dialogue, and debate over vacuous insults and vicious violence. 

We pray that the families of the victims achieve some modicum of relief and comfort in knowing that people of good will hold them in their hearts. 

Indeed, we belong to Allah, and indeed, to Allah we shall return.

Rabbi Dr. Michael Berenbaum

Rabbi Dr. Aryeh Cohen

Rabbi Patricia Fenton

Rabbi Dr. Pinchas Giller

Rabbi Dr. Gail Labovitz

Rabbi Dr. Candice Levy

Rabbi Dr. Ron Wolfson