Communities mourn victims of holiday attack
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — Mourners on Friday remembered a woman who worked tirelessly at her synagogue and a gentle man who loved art in the first formal services to be held for the seven people killed by the gunman who opened fire on a July Fourth parade.
Synagogue members at North Shore Congregation Israel near the Chicago suburb of Highland Park described 63year-old Jacquelyn Sundheim as a dedicated member of their community who coordinated events and and taught preschool classes, smiling all along and constantly checking on other staff members.
“We are horrified,” Rabbi Wendi Geffen said. “We are enraged, sickened, aggrieved, inconsolable for the terror that has befallen us and robbed us of Jacki.”
Geffen and other speakers urged the people filling the synagogue to focus on Sundheim’s life — her commitment to her husband, Bruce, and daughter, Leah; the pleasure she took in knitting; and her attention to detail when planning bat or bar mitzvahs, weddings or funerals.
Her daughter had another request: to use the pain, fear and rage caused by her mother’s death to make the world better, in small thoughts and actions.
“I want you to laugh,” she said, holding back tears. “I want you to each and every day put a little more joy and kindness into this world. Do not let this sadness, this fear, rage turn you bitter towards our world. The world is darker without my mom in it, and it’s up to us now to fill it with a little extra laughter.”
Mourners also filled the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston to support the family of 88-year-old Stephen Straus, who was eulogized as a funny father and grandfather who loved reading and art and still rode the train five days a week to the downtown Chicago office where he worked as a financial advisor.
Son Jonathan described Straus as “truly to his core, just a sweet, generous person” while his other son, Peter, thanked his dad for instilling a love of the “zany,” including Mel Brooks.
Jonathan Straus said learning of his father’s death from a doctor at a hospital “was the worst moment of my life.”
“Thinking about what a good, giving, loving person he was, it makes the cruelty and the horror of his death that much harder to take,” he said. “When I see pictures of him ... it really just sweeps over me, what we’ve lost, who I lost, my best friend ever.”
A 2020 study by Brandeis University and the University of Chicago found Highland Park had among the Chicago region’s highest concentrations of Jewish residents — a fact reflected by the halfdozen or more synagogues in the suburb or just outside it. Many local restaurants offer kosher food options.
Neighboring Highwood is home to a large Latino population, and Mexican authorities have said two men killed at the parade were natives of the country.
One of them was 78-year-old Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza of Waukegan, where family and friends gathered Friday for services.
During a private family viewing preceding public services, a granddaughter left the church in tears. Family members encircled Yesenia Hernandez, trying to comfort her as she sobbed.
Several attendees wore T-shirts with a cross and an image of Toledo-Zaragoza grinning, wearing a brimmed hat and suit.
In Spanish, the shirts read: “In memory of Nicolas Toledo,” and included words from Psalms 23:1 — “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.”
Outside the church entryway, adorned with white and blue balloons, Toledo-Zaragoza’s sons, Alejo and Angel, spoke briefly about how they will miss their father’s love.
Services for 69-year-old Eduardo Uvaldo are scheduled for Saturday.
Police have said that victims were shot randomly and that the assailant had no racial or religious motivation.