We Must Remember Their Names (Temple Beth Or)

The Israeli poet “Zelda” Schneurson Mishkovsky wrote the following well-known poem:

Each of us has a name
given by God
and given by our parents 

Each of us has a name
given by our stature and our smile
and given by what we wear 

Each of us has a name
given by the mountains
and given by our walls 

Each of us has a name
given by the stars
and given by our neighbors 

Each of us has a name
given by our sins
and given by our longing 

Each of us has a name
given by our enemies
and given by our love

 Each of us has a name
given by our celebrations
and given by our work

 Each of us has a name
given by the seasons
and given by our blindness

 Each of us has a name
given by the sea
and given by
our death.

It is important that we take time to know the names of those whose lives are taken from us—the names of the people who are not amongst us because of a world so often lacking in justice. It, of course, isn’t enough to “just” remember a name. Our hearts and our consciences demand that we do more. Nevertheless, as our Kaddish prayer evidences, remembering the name of the deceased is an important part of what we, as Jews, do to mourn the dead.

I remain as heartbroken as ever as I grapple with the fact that dozens of innocent men, women, and children were needlessly slaughtered as they prayed in a mosque last month. Despite this massacre having happened on the other side of the world, there is a real pain that we all experience in our own homes here in Dayton too. My heart still hurts, and I still am at a loss about how to respond. I know though, that at the least, we must remember. I encourage you to take a moment to do precisely that—to read one by one through the names of the people our world so recently lost for no reason other than the fact that hate, and racism, and bigotry still exist. There is something both powerful and intimate in uttering a person’s name; I encourage you to breathe new life into these human memories, vocalizing their names in a private moment.

These we remember:

Husna Ahmad, 47.
Areeb Ahmed, 27.
Farhaj Ahsan, 30.
Ashraf Ali, 61.
Syed Jahandad Ali, 34.
Ansi Alibava, 25.
Linda Armstrong, 64.
Muse Nur Awale, 77.
Zakaria Bhuiya, 33.
Kamel Darwish, 38.
Atta Elayyan, 33.
Ali Elmadani, 65.
Abdukadir Elmi, 78.
Mohammed Omar Faruk, 36.
Ahmed Abdel Ghani, 68.
Amjad Hamid, 57.
Lilik Abdul Hamid, 58.
Mohsin Al Harbi, 63.
Mojammel Hoq, 30.
Mucad Ibrahim, 3.
Junaid Ismail, 36.
Ozair Kadir, 25.
Mohammed Imran Khan, 47.
Maheboob Khokhar, 65.
Osama Adnan Youssef Kwaik, 37.
Haroon Mahmood, 40.
Ashraf al-Masri.
Salwa Mirwan Mohamad.
Sayyad Milne, 14.
Hamza Mustafa, 16, and Khaled Mustafa, 44: father and son.
Hussein Moustafa, 70.
Haji Daoud al-Nabi, 71.
Tariq Omar, 24.
Musa Vali Suleman Patel, 60.
Abdelfattah Qasem, 60.
Naeem Rashid, 50, and Talha Rashid, 21: father and son.
Mounir Soliman, 68.
Shahid Suhail, 35.
Zeeshan Raza, 38, Ghulam
Hussain, 66, Karam Bibi, 63: Husband, wife, and son.
Ashraf Ali Razat, 58.
Mathullah Safi, 55.
Muhammed Abdusi Samad, 66.
Hussein Al-Umari, 35.
Asif Vora, 58, and Ramiz Vora, 28: father and son.