NBC news airs Jewish mourner’s prayer in tribute to Pittsburgh victims
Host Lester Holt says gesture was inspired by ‘powerful’ front-page cover of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which featured first 4 words of the traditional liturgy
In a tribute to the 11 victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, NBC’s Nightly News on Friday hosted a Jewish cantor to recite the traditional mourner’s prayer in their honor.
Cantor Azi Schwartz of the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York was invited on the show by Lester Holt to say the Kaddish.
The somber prayer was accompanied by a collage of the victims in last Saturday’s rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue.
Holt said the gesture was inspired by “powerful” cover of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the largest newspaper serving the Pennsylvania city’s metropolitan area, which printed a part of the Jewish mourner’s prayer in Hebrew as its front-page headline on Friday.
The front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Friday November 2, 2018 (Screenshot via JTA)
The words mean “may His great name be exalted and sanctified.”
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On Twitter, historian Aaron Astor wrote: “The Jewish Mourner’s Kaddish is one of the most important prayers of all. This was a very moving gesture by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to post it as the headline.”
Jodi Kantor, an investigative journalist for The New York Times, wrote that the unusual headline is “The ultimate tribute to the victims. A statement that Jews belong.”
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The victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, October 27, 2018. (Facebook/Google Maps/JTA Collage)
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