A group of faith leaders, public officials and residents spoke about the impact of the Highland Park shooting during a candlelight vigil in Glencoe on Thursday night.
For Ellen Lovi Glassberg it was an invitation received with rage as her cousin, Jacki Sundheim was one of seven people killed Monday at the July 4 parade.
“Frankly instead of being honored, I am horrified,” Glassberg said, “I know that she would be, too, about the violent and traumatic way that she died. Let’s take some action so we don’t have to do this again.”
Sundheim was one of seven killed and dozens injured at the Highland Park parade. In an effort to bring some healing to Glencoe community grappling with the massacre in the neighboring Highland Park, the Glencoe Clergy Association sponsored a candlelight vigil at Congregation Am Shalom, where seven empty white chairs adorned with orange ribbons honored those killed.
“As we light the candle, we pass along light, hope, strength and comfort,” explained St. Paul AME Church Rev. Katrese Kirk McKenzie.
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Some of the parade attendees offered firsthand accounts on their experiences to the hundreds listening from outside the synagogue.
“I wept on the shoulder of a woman I had never met and she soothed me as best she could,” Eliza Bankier said.
She then spoke of the boots she wore to the parade that were stained with blood of some of the victims. Bankier said she was going to keep them as a reminder of the carnage and similar to Glassberg, she hopes this shooting will be a catalyst toward new approaches regarding gun violence.
“No child should ever have to look down at their shoes and be reminded of a day that was beyond their worst nightmares,” Bankier said. “It’s up to us to make things change.”
Local restaurant owner Steve Geffen spoke haltingly of the call he got from his longtime employee Alex Toledo, whose father, Nicholas, was one of seven fatalities, with five other members of the family wounded.
“Him crying to me was something I will never forget, I wanted to take care of him, it was devastating,” Geffen said.
Geffen added he normally would have been at his Once Upon restaurants taking care of basic business matters on Monday. If Geffen had followed his normal routine, he said it was possible he would have been watching the parade with the Toledo family.
With that experience, he urged the audience to follow his fresh living perspective.
“My message is plain and simple: live your life to the fullest,” he said.
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As Highland Park now joins the long list of U.S. communities experiencing mass shootings, there was much frustration about the seemingly intractable nature of the issue.
“It is sad that we haven’t been able to figure out how to solve this,” noted Barbara Javore, the deacon at North Shore United Methodist Church. “The fact that it is in our neighborhood, it is very difficult. This is the only answer we have is a faith community to hold each other up in this time because there is nothing else and I don’t know what else we can do.”
Glencoe Village President Howard Roin spoke of being “heartbroken” of what occurred in Highland Park, but added that was not the only emotion he was experiencing.
“I’m also angry. I’m angry because in the United States, these gun massacres are routine,” Roin said as he called for an assault rifle ban.
“It’s too late for the Highland Park victims, but I hope our government can act soon to save whoever may be next,” he said.
Am Shalom Rabbi Steven Lowenstein added, “Did we really think we would be immune to gun violence here on the North Shore of Chicago?”
Lowenstein told the audience three members of the congregation were wounded, but the trauma of the carnage was felt throughout the community.
“There were so many others that were hit and they are going to feel that for the rest of their lives,” Lowenstein said.
He called on people to request mental health assistance to deal with the trauma. Yet he later delivered a note of optimism mixed with resilience.
“Highland Park I can guarantee will come back stronger, even better than before,” Lowenstein said. “In the process, it is going to make Glencoe stronger as well.”
Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.