OUR COMMUNITY
“I CANNOT GET THAT IMAGE OF EVERYONE RUNNING
FOR FEAR OF THEIR LIVES OUT OF MY HEAD.”
— STUDENT ISAAC SMITH
continued from page 15
16 | FEBRUARY 23 • 2023
ON THE COVER
Two evenings later, the Jewish com-
munity organized a vigil at Temple Israel
in West Bloomfield. Rabbis from nearly
a dozen local congregations told 400
attendees, nearly all clad in MSU green
gear, that at times like this, it is OK to feel
shattered and weary, but coming togeth-
er to lean on one another and to sing
prayers of comfort and healing is the way
to eventually build resolve.
The MSU mass shooting marks the 71st
such event in 2023 in the United States.
And it’s only February.
TERROR ON CAMPUS
MSU Junior Isaac Smith, 20, of West
Bloomfield said he was in Akers Dining
Hall around 8 p.m. with hundreds of
other students when he received a call
from a friend and then an
email alert notification that
shots had been fired on cam-
pus around Berkey Hall and
the Student Union. Students
barricaded the doors of the
dining hall with furniture and
tried to stay informed by lis-
tening to the police scanner.
“There was a rumor that the gunman
may have been making his way to the east
campus, where Akers is located,” Smith
recalled. “
About 90 minutes into being
in lockdown at the dining hall, someone
yelled move. And then we all suspected
that the shooter had entered the dining
hall. There were so many people running
and I think screaming, and I don’t know
how but I made it with others through
the kitchen and into a stairwell.”
At that point, Smith said police had
surrounded the dining hall and instructed
all who were in the stairwell, which led to
an outside exit, to run outside with their
hands above their head. Eventually, Smith
made it with others to one of the resi-
dence halls that flanked the dining hall,
where he spent the remainder of the lock-
down barricaded in a dorm room until
there was an all-clear notification that the
shooter was no longer a threat.
A PLACE FOR SOLACE
For solace, Smith and many other stu-
dents, both Jewish and non-Jewish, head-
ed to the Lester and Jewell Morris Hillel
Jewish Student Center on 350 Charles
St. There, they were welcomed in with
Cantor Rachel Gottlieb Kalmowitz of
Temple Beth El leads those assembled at
the Temple Israel vigil in song.
Isaac Smith