Killing In the Name Of...

I woke up this morning, and as usual, asked my husband, who always gets up early to hear the news, what was going on in the world. He told me that America had suffered another shooting attack at a school, this time at an Illinois university.

So I went online to check out the story, which is still unravelling. Some alumnus came into a science class, shot up the teacher and some random students, and then killed himself. Six are dead, including the killer, and over a dozen are hospitalized. Wow.

Then came the shocker, which I will quote verbatim from the Associated Press:

The shooting was the fourth at a U.S. school within a week.

On Feb. 8, a woman shot two fellow students to death before committing suicide at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge. In Memphis, Tenn., a 17-year-old is accused of shooting and critically wounding a fellow student Monday during a high school gym class, and the 15-year-old victim of a shooting at an Oxnard, Calif., junior high school has been declared brain dead.

Now I have to say, that sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the sense of violence in Israel, what with maniacal Muslims looking to murder me all the time and whatnot. But I'm starting to get the sense that America's not such a safe zone these days, either. And at least violence in Israel is related to some sort of meaning, a stated religio-cultural war, rather than the I-have-nothing-better-to-do glutted slayings which are ramping up in America.

So I'd like to wish the people of America, the people of Israel, and the people all over the world a holy, meaningful, and peaceful Shabbat. I hope we'll all do what we've got to do to end the victimization of good people.