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