(USAToday)
The woman killed in Saturday’s San Diego synagogue shooting stepped in front of the bullets aimed at her longtime friend and rabbi as he raced to evacuate children, according to her friends and authorities.
Friends say the actions of Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, were in keeping with the San Diego native they knew: always the first to help with faith and family.
Kaye was killed at Chabad of Poway when a nursing student who apparently espoused anti-Semitic beliefs opened fire with an AR-style rifle. Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, Kaye's friend of 30 years, suffered defensive wounds to his hands but survived the attack.
This is Lori Gilbert-Kaye and Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein. Lori was killed at Chabad of Poway when a nursing student opened fire with an AR-style rifle. Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein suffered defensive wounds to his hands but survived the attack and then gave a sermon to the huddled congregation before going to the hospital, Audrey Jacobs, a friend, said in a Facebook post.
Roneet Lev, an emergency medicine physician from Poway, said Kaye was her best friend and like a second mother to her two children.
Lev rushed to the hospital and spoke to Goldstein as he was going into surgery.
“The rabbi told me as he was being rolled into the OR, ‘let everyone know that Lori stepped in and saved my life,’” Lev said Sunday morning as she visited a growing memorial of flowers and candles across the street from the synagogue. “Tell everybody that I was a target.”
Kaye leaves behind a husband and daughter.
"Your final good deed was taking the bullets for Rabbi Mendel Goldstein to save his life," friend Audrey Jacobs wrote in a post she said had been approved by the other victims and their families. "Tragically the rabbi was still shot in the hand and he gave a sermon telling everyone to stay strong." Read more