On Monday afternoon, Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, the woman shot and killed while attending Passover services at Chabad of Poway, was laid to rest amongst throngs of mourners. She was remembered as a loving, giving woman by her husband, her daughter, friends and members of her congregation.
Edited by: JV Staff
Kaye was described by one friend as a pillar of San Diego’s Jewish community, according to a local NBC news report. Mrs. Kaye was attending Saturday’s service to pay tribute to her late mother (in the Yizkor service) for the dearly departed when she was confronted by gunman, John T. Earnest, 19.
Kaye was standing in the lobby of the temple just before 11:30 a.m. when she stepped between Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein of Chabad of Poway and a man who fired several shots from what police described as a rifle.
Her husband, Howard Kaye, M.D., a doctor with Scripps Coastal Medical Center Cedar-Vista told the congregation that he performed CPR on his wife and that she died quickly.
“She did not suffer,” he said reassuringly.
He spoke of Saturday’s incident and described the gunman as “lower than an animal” who was likely raised on a diet of blood and gore, according to the San Diego NBC affiliate station.
At one point, he admitted that his thoughts were coming to him so quickly he was having trouble organizing them but he wanted to share the story of a peace pole his wife had erected at their home. The pole had a message “Peace prevail on Earth” in five different languages.
“My wife was a person. Is a person who did so much good in her life,” he told the congregation. “Whatever good she did always turned out. And whatever I did that might not have been good, she repaired and made me look good.”
Hannah Kaye said she chose to a pink dress of her mother because she said her mother was a rainbow, her greatest advocate and her dancing partner.
“Our story was, is and will forever continue to be nothing short of extraordinary and remarkable,” she said.
Kaye was credited with playing a key role in building the synagogue in the suburban city of Poway, approximately 22 miles north of downtown San Diego.
The president of the synagogue described the temple as “ground zero.”
“The very place where an anti-Semitic terrorist came to tear us down,” Sam Hoffman said. “We’ve now come together to build our community back up.”
A friend recalled how Kaye was a large supporter of President Donald Trump, always had a gift to give a friend or loved one and watched several cable news channels and read several newspapers.
“Lori died on Shabbat. Lori died on Passover. Lori died in a synagogue. And Lori died saving our Rabbi,” her friend said.
Rabbi Yonah Fradkin said that Kaye would want to be positive in the face of hate.
“There was one sacrifice chosen and that was the purest and most beautiful person that we had in the congregation. The person that cared for everyone. The person that loved everyone. The person that was the strength and the pillar when anyone had a problem. Lori would be the first one to come forward and say, ‘How can I help you,’” Fradkin said to the congregation.
“May we go out and help and do more and share kindness and not let terror destroy us in any way shape or form,” he said.
