In today's NYT: His father's murder drives a Rabbi's Pursuit of Gun Control

Samuel G Freedman

In the months after his father’s murder in early 1999, those months stretching formlessly between the mourning ritual of shiva and the impending trial of a suspect, Rabbi Joel Mosbacher received many messages of solace. There was one type, however, that tested every atom of clerical forbearance he possessed. 

“People said in this trying-to-be-helpful way, ‘This will make you a better rabbi,’ ” Rabbi Mosbacher, 43, recalled. “And nothing made me angrier. I didn’t want to be a better rabbi. I wanted my dad back.” 

He wanted Lester Mosbacher, who had been shot dead in a petty robbery at his small business on Chicago’s South Side the day before he turned 53. He wanted the father who cheered the White Sox and gardened in the backyard and barbecued with a flashlight or umbrella if necessary. He wanted the grandfather for his firstborn son, just 11 months old at the time of the murder. 

As Joel Mosbacher raised his own family and advanced in his rabbinical career, moving from an assistant’s position outside Atlanta to a senior one in this New Jersey suburb, he recognized that no prayer, no fast, no act of religious charity could give him what he wanted. 

Yet on a Sunday afternoon this month, Rabbi Mosbacher stood before an assembly of 200 clergy members, congregants, politicians and police officials in a North Jersey church to tell, in the cause of gun control, the story of his father’s murder. 

“All he did was drive to work, as he had done for 35 years, and he was stolen from his brothers, wife, his children and grandchildren,” Rabbi Mosbacher said. “I’ve carried this story with me, this anger, every day for the last 14 years.” Then he made reference to a verse from Leviticus: “I won’t stand idly by my father’s blood.” 

What Rabbi Mosbacher was proposing was not just support for the gun control legislation then pending in the Senate. In fact, rather presciently, he warned the audience not to “hope for the best from the most dysfunctional institution in America.” 

Specifically, as a leader of the faith-based coalition New Jersey Together, he was propounding its proposal that local mayors, gun retailers, firearms manufacturers and large buyers like the military sign a “covenant” of gun overhaul measures. Among its 30 points, the covenant called for voluntary limits on selling certain types of weapons and large-capacity magazines, sale of guns only through federally licensed dealers and mandatory safety classes for buyers. (Because the covenant was just announced on April 14, the process of getting signatures has not begun.) 

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