I would have wept had I sat up front. I was fortunate to pass the vigil for the Pittsburgh Eleven in the foyer of Temple Emanu-El last week.

The small church overflowed, mostly with average folks paying their respects. Less than a dozen public officials and pretenders.

After most attendees left for an outdoor candle lighting, I ventured into the nearly empty place of worship. Therein, I beheld a table bearing 11 framed color photos, each with the name and age of a worshiper killed in Pennsylvania. A single candle illuminated each kindly, smiling face. 

I began to tear up and evacuated outside where a hundred candles soon bathed a brick Star of David in a caress of gentle flame.

Black people. White people. Brown people. Red people. Yellow people. All became Jews for at least one night. A rare, ephemeral community of sorrow. An ad hoc family.

Aye, there's the rub. As a nation, as an industrialized society, we've lost our community and live much the worse for it.

My tears soon found company.

Last Sunday, New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss tore me up again. The mostly Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood where the senseless slaughter took place is her home town. The Tree of Life Synagogue is her family's place of worship.

She wrote a killer compendium of human kindness amid tragedy.

When I was in Catholic school, they taught us that two of the acts that get you into heaven are healing the sick and burying the dead. If so, two sisters punched their ticket.

"If you are lucky, when a terrorist comes to your town, you will witness some of this country's better angels...like Alisa Fall and Melanie Weisbord who spent Sunday night doing shmira — guarding the body of one of the victims so that, in keeping with Jewish tradition, the person would never be alone."

I can think of few more wrenching acts of pure kindness.

We live in an uptight world but it doesn't need to be this way. John Lennon was right in singing "all you need is love." Which includes family.

The fabled Italians of Roseto, Pennsylvania, proved it. I first learned of Roseto in college health education class. The little eastern Pennsylvania hamlet of less than 2,000 was the healthiest place in the United States a half-century ago. No crime. No heart disease. No one applied for public assistance. And nobody followed the latest diet fad. If you want to view an example on film, watch "Moonstruck."

New York Daily News health columnist Dr. Rock Positano (yes, that's his real name), wrote this in 2011: "Rosetans, regardless of income and education, expressed themselves in a family-centered social life. There was a total absence of ostentation among the wealthy, meaning that those who had more money didn't flaunt it. There was nearly exclusive patronage of local businesses, even with nearby bigger shops and stores in other towns. The Italians intermarried in Roseto, from regional cities in Italy. Families were close knit, self-supportive and independent, but also relied...in bad times...on the greater community for well-defined assistance and friendly help," the good doctor wrote.

"No one was alone in Roseto. No one seemed too unhappy or too stressed out. And the proof was a heart attack death rate almost half of everyone else around them. Wealthier towns suffered from heart disease though their medical facilities, diet and occupations were either better or at least equal than available in Roseto. Each house contained three families, or three generations. The elderly were neither institutionalized nor marginalized, but were 'installed' as informal judges and arbitrators in everyday life and commerce."

As the area became more suburbanized, typical maladies followed. The first heart attack was recorded in 1971. The "Roseto Effect" faded into legend.

A slick car salesman once told me somewhat the same thing about Reno-Sparks: "If you treat the town right, when you need it, they'll take care of you." Ironically, he told me that in 1971.

I saw a family come together in support and sorrow at Temple Emanu-El a few days ago.

If we can convince the powerful to invest in families rather than greed and war, we can accomplish wondrous achievements.

All it takes is the personal, political and humanitarian will to do so.

I won't close this hopeful lament with the normal "be well, raise hell" because I'm reliably informed that Jews don't believe in the mythical fear-instilling inferno.

God bless them.
_______
Andrew Barbano is a 50-year Nevadan, executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, first vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate, member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO and editor of NevadaLabor.com and BallotBoxing.US and SenJoeNeal.org and DoctorLawyerWatch.com/ As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988 and received its ninth Nevada Press Association award and 6th first-place at the 29 Sept. 2018 NPA annual convention in Las Vegas. (That trophy and about six bucks will get you a Latte Mocha Cotsafracas Chingade at just about any Starbux worldwide, guaranteed.)

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