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MARCHING ON

from page 17

moved hearing from speakers who had
experienced tragedy. "There was a
counselor from the Jewish Center who
was shot. She talked about telling
campers to get down — get away
from the bad man with the gun,"
Kirshenbaum says.
"On the news, you don't personal-
ize as much. Hearing those who expe-
rienced the terror made it real. So did
people walking around with placards
and T-shirts with photos of their chil-
dren who were shot."
She came home haunted by the
thought: "How do they ever get over
the heartache?"
Diane Greenley of Farmington Hills
attended the march with
Kirshenbaum. She recalled hearing
from a woman whose son was acciden-
tally shot by their 9-year-old neighbor.
From her, Greenley learned that she
should be asking the parents of her
children's playmates if they own a gun.
The words that most moved her
stressed that it may be hard to ask
someone if they have a gun in their
home, but it's a lot harder to pick out a
casket. "You have a right to ask. If they
take offense, it's not where you want
your child to play," Greenley said.
Carrying the momentum of the
march into action is important to
Gorchoff.
"This is not a one-time deal, To
make a change, we need to take baby
,steps. We cannot stop spreading the
word. Congress has to get the mes-
sage. We have to continue to battle for
gun control."
Million Mom Marchers are doing
just that. Donna Dees-Thomases,
founder of the march, sees the event as
serving to get the attention of political
leaders, but the intent is to keep fight-
ing — by sending petitions to
Congress, keeping an updated Web
site with information on gun-control-
related issues, collecting donations.
She and her organizers are dis-
cussing joining forces with such gun-
violence prevention organizations as
the Bell Campaign, the Coalition to
Stop Gun Violence, PAX, Handgun
Control Inc. and States United. The
next step is the creation of the Million
Mom March Foundation, an educa-
tional arm of the organization.
Many who participated in the
Million Mom March share Gorchoff's
assessment of the day:
"I didn't spend 24 hours on a bus
and stand on my feet from 9:30 to
3:30, getting a sunburn so bad I need-
ed a doctor, to come home and forget
what we're fighting for." ❑

CONTINUING THE FIGHT

from page 18

Reform movement's Union of
American Hebrew Congregations,
told marchers, "We are ready for a
knockdown, drag-out, no-holds-
barred battle against the NRA, which
is the real criminals' lobby in this
country, and which is drenched in the
blood of murdered children."
At an interfaith service just before
the rally and march began, Rabbi
Marc Israel of the Reform move-
ment's Religious Action Center urged
more action from the Jewish commu-
nity, saying it is not enough to avoid
violence, but people must be rodfei
shalom, pursuers of peace.
"True peace can only be found
when our families and our communi-
ties are complete, when gun violence
no longer shatters our lives and the
lives of our loved ones," he said.
Smaller rallies were held in some
70 communities around the country,
including several in California.
In Oakland, Calif, Jewish involve-
ment was significant at a rally of an
estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people —
from the shofar that sounded a call to
action to the cutting-edge Jewish rock
sounds of singer Bruce Burger, better
known as RebbeSoul.
Carol Kingsley, the widow of the
former regional president of the
American Jewish Congress, Jack
Berman, gave a moving speech in
which she spoke of her husband's
death during a 1993 mass shooting in
San Francisco.
"People who are shot are not the
only victims," said Kingsley, who now
heads the AJCongress's Jack Berman
Advocacy Center. "There are also
those who are left behind. There is
long suffering, deep pain."
In Los Angeles, as- in Washington,
opponents of gun control held a
counterdemonstration under the ban-
ner of the Second Amendment
Sisters.
There was no contact between the
opposing sides, separated by police
cordons, but some Million Mom par-
ticipants expressed resentment at signs
trying to link their cause to the
Holocaust.
One sign at the counterdemonstra-
tion showed a large Star of David
with the words, "Never Again."
Another proclaimed: "Nazis Had Gun
Control." ❑

— JTA correspondent Tom Tugend in .
Los Angeles, the Jewish Bulletin of
Northern California and the
Community of Louisville, Ky., con-
tributed to this report.

