The rabbi whose fingers were blown off during a deadly attack on his California synagogue said he “faced evil” but resolved to keep moving to protect his congregation.
“Just five days ago – Saturday morning – I faced evil and the worst darkness of all time right in our own house of worship,” Rabbi Yisorel Goldstein said Thursday during a ceremony honoring the National Day of Prayer at the White House.
“I faced him and I had to make a decision: Do I run and hide or do I stand tall and fight and protect all those that are there,” Goldstein told the crowd in the Rose Garden, his left hand bandaged and his arm in a sling.
“I was in the line of fire, bullets flying. My fingers got blown off but I did not stop,” he said.
A 19-year-old anti-Semite carrying an assault-style rifle walked into the Chabad of Poway last Saturday and opened fire on the congregation, killing one worshiper, Lori Gilbert-Kaye, and wounding three others.
The attack came on the last day of Passover.
“My life has changed forever, but it changed so I can make change and I could help others learn how to be strong and learn how to mighty and tall,” Goldstein said.
He said he often been asked how to prevent such violence and suggested the country return to “the basics and introduce a moment of silence in all public schools.”
He referred to his rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, who reminded him of the moment of silence held in schools after the assassination attempt against President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
“So that children from early childhood on could recognize that there is more good to the world, that they are valuable, that there is accountability and every human being is made in God’s image,” Goldstein said.
“If something good could come out of this terrible, terrible horrific event let us bring back a moment of silence to our school system,” he said.
Goldstein also called President Trump a “mensch par excellence” for calling him after the attack.
“You were the first person who began my healing,” he told Trump.