One day in October, I was having lunch in a Jerusalem restaurant with Karen and Richard Lakin, dear friends for more than 50 years. The next day, I got a message from Karen that Richard had been shot and stabbed on a bus.
Two Palestinian youths had attacked the bus passengers, killing two immediately and injuring 20. They shot Richard in the head and stabbed him multiple times in his head and abdomen, slashing his pancreas, stomach and liver. He survived in a coma for two weeks, dying on Oct. 27.
In his eulogy, his son, Micah, asked: “How is it that such a beautiful person is struck down in such a brutal and horrific manner?”
Richard, Karen and I had gone to Boston University together, all majoring in sociology. Richard had always been a gentle, thoughtful man who strongly believed in and worked hard for coexistence. His Facebook page has an iconic picture of an Arab boy with a kaffiyeh and a Jewish boy with a kippah under a “coexist” logo made from religious symbols.
From early on he acted on his beliefs. In the 1960s, he and Karen were Freedom Riders in the South, a dangerous undertaking since the interstate buses they rode were often bombed and burned. That his life would be taken on a regular city bus in Jerusalem so many years later is unimaginable.
Outside of his civil rights activism, Richard was an educator. For 15 years, he was an exemplary elementary-school principal in Glastonbury, Connecticut. He was the kind of principal many teachers only dream of working with: always respectful, gentle, kind; a model for students.
Richard left his job in 1984 to move with his wife and two young children to Israel. He worked with Israeli and Palestinian schoolchildren from the time he arrived until he died. He lived with a dream to use education to improve lives of both Jews and Palestinians in the Holy Land.
“He was just a deeply optimistic and hopeful person and refused to be deterred by the grim political reality here,” said Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman, the family’s rabbi in Jerusalem. “He wasn’t oblivious to reality, but it didn’t affect his basic existential nature. He could not imagine a solution wasn’t possible and that people couldn’t learn to live together.”
Richard also wrote extensively, frequently communicating the joy he took in working with children. He wrote a book, “Teaching as an Act of Love,” and created a companion website, Thanks2Teachers.com.
After the attack, international media descended on Richard’s hospital room when United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon came to visit. Richard’s children, Micah and Manya, sent a message asking Ban to do more to curb hate speech, saying that is what their father would have wanted.
“Dad would no doubt [have talked] about the importance of coexistence and mutual respect, and called upon the secretary-general to do everything in his power to protest and speak against extremist rhetoric and incitement,” Micah said on Facebook and in interviews.
For their part, Micah and Manya have filed a class-action lawsuit against Facebook, arguing that social media posts encouraging and teaching violence contributed to their father’s death. They reference posts that even include directions on where to efficiently place the knife in order to stab a Jewish person to death. Rather than monetary compensation, the case seeks an injunction that would force Facebook to block posts inciting violence against Jews.
The family has received thousands of messages and letters from friends, colleagues and students, both in the United States and Israel, proclaiming the huge positive influence Richard had on their lives.
“Even from the smallest conversation, I always learned,” said his 16-year-old granddaughter, Shachar.
Richard’s family said he would have been especially happy that his fellow teachers visited him before he died, bringing a handwritten poster in Hebrew and Arabic praying for his speedy recovery made by children (some his students) from Hand In Hand, Jerusalem’s joint Arab-Jewish school.
At our lunch in Jerusalem just before the October attack, Richard was enthusiastic about a film project he was working on and got us excited, too. He would be pleased to see his family, despite the tragedy, continuing to push for peace and kindness.
As granddaughter Shachar said at his funeral: “I know you would want me to always try to be a better person and do the right thing; you would want me to spread love and happiness everywhere I go. I think you wouldn’t want me to have even one ounce of hate in my body, even after what has been done to you.”
Dorothy Dorsay sits on the board of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Silicon Valley and was the social action chair at Congregation Beth David in Saratoga for 30 years.