Eleven memorial candles were lit, Tuesday evening, one for each victim in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting over the weekend.
More than 200 people packed into the Rotunda at Barrie City Hall for a community vigil, which was organized by the Am Shalom congregation in Barrie.
The vigil included several speakers from a variety of faiths, including West Side Evangelical Lutheran Church, Chabad Jewish Centre of Barrie and Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at, as well as local politicians such as Barrie-Innisfil MPP Andrea Khanjin and Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman.
"The loss of innocent life is always a tragedy; the loss of innocent life to hatred is particularly evil," Lehman told the crowd. "What we know is that, by gathering together, we express our rejection of intolerance.
"We have had to gather like this far, far too often in recent years," the mayor added. "It's a reality that intolerance and violence associated with hatred is on the rise in North America."
Lehman said the time is now to "renew a commitment to one another and to our community."
Am Shalom synagogue’s religious leader, Audrey Kaufman, led Tuesday's vigil with words of prayer and song.
"We decided we really wanted to reach out to the community and we felt we needed the support of the community," Kaufman told BarrieToday following the vigil. "We didn't know how many people would be here; we can't believe it, we have no words.
"What this does to us, to show this support, and the faith and kindness, it's just tremendous to see people of all faiths come together like this," she added. "We all pray to the same God, but we may pray differently, so it was clear here that everybody feels that way."
Kaufman said she was expecting "a good crowd, but this was far more than we could anticipate. This has given strength to the entire Barrie community."
Eleven people were killed Saturday when a man walked into the Tree of Hill synagogue in Pittsburgh and began shooting people. The dead range in age from 54 to 97 years old.
The first funerals were held on Tuesday for two brothers who had been killed.
Six other people were wounded in the synagogue attack, including police officers responding to the scene.
A 46-year-old man has been charged with 11 state counts of criminal homicide, six counts of aggravated assault and 13 counts of ethnic intimidation. He was also charged in a 29-count federal criminal complaint that included counts of obstructing the exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death — a federal hate crime — and using a firearm to commit murder.
Federal prosecutors have indicated they will seek the death penalty.
