Once again the Jewish community in the Kansas City metro area — specifically the Kansas suburb of Overland Park — has been rocked by the violence engendered by hatred and bigotry.

One of the four rabbis killed in this morning’s fatal attack on an Orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem was Rabbi Kalman Levine, 55, who had grown up in the Kansas City area, and was a 1976 graduate of Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy in Overland Park. Another of the four victims was Rabbi Mosheh Twersky, 59, whose nephew Rabbi Meshulum Twersky is a teacher of third and fourth-grade Jewish studies at Hyman Brand.

Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy is attached to a larger complex in Overland Park known as the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City.  On April 13th of this year, the Jewish Community Center was the site of a shooting where Frazier Glenn Cross of Missouri, a former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon, opened fire on a grandfather and his grandson, killing both. He then traveled a short distance south to Village Shalom, a senior living center, and shot a woman, killing her as well.

I am not Jewish, but the shooting in April and the deaths of the rabbis in Jerusalem have evoked in me a heavy heart. I work as a speech pathologist for children, and I have a child on my caseload who attends Hyman Brand. I have worked with other students from that school a few years ago. The staff at Hyman Brand have always treated me with courtesy, respect, and kindness, and I have always felt welcome there.

I have a song on my playlist called “One Day,” by the Jewish reggae singer Matisyahu, which expresses a prayer for peace and an end to violence. It features these lines:

. . .all my life I’ve been waiting for
I’ve been praying for
for the people to say
that we don’t wanna fight no more
there’ll be no more wars
and our children will play
one day. . .

One Day. Unfortunately for our Jewish brethren, it appears that One Day may never come.