Teenagers are a part of Estie Orenstein’s life, which is why when she heard the tragic news of a school shooting in Parkland, Fla., it struck her hard. She and her husband, Rabbi Yosef Orenstein, direct the local chapter of CTeen, the Chabad teen network, at Valley Chabad in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., and when the news hit, it was close to home. She just didn’t realize how close.

As the death toll that Wednesday afternoon kept climbing, Estie Orenstein could only think of the young, innocent, vibrant teenagers who had been cut off in their prime—mere kids just beginning their trek into adulthood. The teens in this case were in Florida and she in New Jersey, so she didn’t think she’d know them. Until the names started coming in.

“My husband heard the news and recognized Alyssa Alhadeff’s name,” Orenstein tells Chabad.org. “It was devastating.”

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The Alhadeff family had until a few years ago lived in New Jersey, with Alyssa and her two brothers attending Gan Israel summer camp, also run by the Orensteins.

“She really was a happy, helpful kid,” recalls Orenstein. “Always smiling, always positive, with adorable younger brothers.”

Thousands of Parkland and Coral Springs community members, including public officials, fire and police, and classmates came out for Alhadeff’s tearful funeral in Parkland on Friday in a ceremony officiated by Rabbi Shuey Biston, executive director of Chabad of Parkland.

Alyssa had been a young camper, 9 and 10 years old, when she attended Gan Israel summer day camp in Woodcliff Lake. She was a 14-year-old freshman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when she was struck down by an ill young man’s bullet. In all, 17 lives were taken in the mass shooting, five of them—four students and one teacher—members of South Florida Jewish communities.

Many at the CTeen event remembered Alyssa as a 9-year-old at the local Gan Israel summer day camp.
Many at the CTeen event remembered Alyssa as a 9-year-old at the local Gan Israel summer day camp.

An Emotional Gathering in Woodcliff Lake

And while the people of Parkland and adjacent Coral Springs are mired in grief, with a unique sense of bereavement having settled over the tight-knit communities, the sorrow extends much further—in this case, impacting the Jewish community in Woodcliff Lake in North Jersey, and the now-teenage classmates and friends Alyssa had made there.

One night after the shooting in Parkland, 18 Woodcliff Lake teens gathered for what would have been a regular CTeen event. The Jewish holiday of Purim—which takes place during Adar, the happiest month of the year—is approaching. Orenstein had planned to teach something about the holiday and then bake hamantaschen with the group—those three-cornered, jam-filled pastries traditionally consumed on the holiday. The jam (or poppy) filling, hidden within the dough, connotes the hidden Hand of G‑d in the miracle of Purim and in all of life, an appropriate metaphor for an incomprehensible tragedy as Parkland.

CTeen chapters operate in 41 countries, with the program having reached more than 100,000 teens in the 10 years since its inception. On Thursday evening, CTeen central in Brooklyn, N.Y., organized a conference call during which Chassidic speaker Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Jacobson shared words on the Jewish approach to death and grieving and, eventually, healing. He spoke of how to harness the overflow of love and unity experienced during times of collective mourning, and transform grief into everlasting, positive change. The teens who were gathered in Woodcliff Lake listened along with more than 1,000 of their peers around the globe.

Alyssa was a freshman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas when she was shot and killed at school on Feb. 14.
Alyssa was a freshman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas when she was shot and killed at school on Feb. 14.

When it was over, Rabbi Orenstein spoke to his group, encouraging the young people to take on one more mitzvah, one more good deed, in Alyssa’s memory. They lit a candle and recited Psalms, and then each one recounted memories of her.

“Most of the kids knew Alyssa in one way or another,” says Estie Orenstein. “So it was a very emotional evening. We were all beside ourselves; there was a lot of tears and crying, but we also focused on all of us carrying on Alyssa’s candle to light up the world.”

One of those teens was Jazzy Bachman, 14, a CTeen group leader and a Friendship Circle volunteer. She had grown up with Alyssa, attending Dorchester Elementary School together, playing soccer together, and because they had lived close by, carpooling together.

“Everyone shared their memories of Alyssa,” says Jazzy. “And they were all just positive memories; she was really an amazing person.”

Like so many others, Bachman says that she has felt sad before when she heard of similarly tragic events, but having friends who were inside the building during that fateful fourth period, and then realizing that a girl she had grown up with was gone, took the grief to a level she had never known.

“You really can’t imagine what it’s like until it happens,” she says. “Before, it was upsetting, but once it happens to someone you know, it’s unbearable.”

Gathering together to remember Alyssa—the Woodcliff Lake CTeen event was held in her memory—and being with others who knew her, where they could share their feelings and take part in a spiritual response to her senseless death, was comforting, says Bachman.

Rabbi Yosef Orenstein spoke to the group, encouraging the young people to take on one more mitzvah, one more good deed, in Alyssa’s memory.
Rabbi Yosef Orenstein spoke to the group, encouraging the young people to take on one more mitzvah, one more good deed, in Alyssa’s memory.

“It felt better knowing that everyone was there for Alyssa, and there for each other,” she says. “It felt very sad, but it was good to be around each other.”

CTeen will be holding its yearly international Shabbaton in New York this week, drawing 2,500 teenagers from chapters everywhere, the highlight being a mass post-Shabbat gathering in Times Square. The weekend is a happy, joyous one, filled with fun and meaning. But this year’s weekend will also shine a light on the importance of community, of having each other, in times light-hearted and good, and, maybe especially, during the deeply tragic.

“The international Shabbat brings together teenagers from all over the world. On the one hand, they’re all so different, but in a bigger way, they’re all really similar,” says Orenstein, who will be bringing a delegation from Woodcliff Lake. “I think we’re going to feel our togetherness as a people—thousands of Jewish teens from everywhere united together for good. There’s a comfort in the unity.”

The Orensteins remembered Alyssa Alhadeff, left, as a delightful young camper.
The Orensteins remembered Alyssa Alhadeff, left, as a delightful young camper.
Estie Orenstein, right, helped the teens bake hamentashen and also process another teen's passing.
Estie Orenstein, right, helped the teens bake hamentashen and also process another teen's passing.
“It felt very sad, but it was good to be around each other.”
“It felt very sad, but it was good to be around each other.”
Young people gathered last week in New Jersey to bake for Purim and remember their friend.
Young people gathered last week in New Jersey to bake for Purim and remember their friend.