Family of Efraim Gordon celebrates with completion of Torah
BALTIMORE -- Hundreds of people gathered together on Sunday to honor the life of Israeli citizen, Efraim Gordon, who was shot and killed in a carjacking in May 2021.
Gordon was 31 years old when he was killed. He was visiting Baltimore for a cousin's wedding when he was targeted by at least three people. Gordon had just parked his car in front of a family member's house on Ford Lane when the shooting happened.
The celebration started at the spot where Gordon was attacked and ended along Park Heights Avenue at Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion congregation.
At the site of the shooting, the family, along with hundreds of others from the Jewish community, came together to celebrate with final letters of the Torah being inked onto parchment paper.
"The very place where Efraim's life was so tragically and brutally taken, we completed the Torah scroll," Gordon's cousin, Dovid Reyder, said. "The sacred Torah, which is a symbol of life. A new life was born."
From there, a procession of dancing and singing followed to the congregation.
Reyder said that during part of Gordon's final day, he spent time at his new synagogue in Catonsville.
"I said goodbye to him. I gave him a hug and that was the last time I ever saw him," Reyder said. "But when I held the Torah today, I kind of felt, like, nostalgically that was kind of holding part of Efraim."
The completed Torah, which was started at the congregation, flown to Israel and then sent back to Baltimore, will be sent to Reyder's synagogue to be read to the congregation, carrying on Gordon's legacy.
As Gordon's family celebrates the birth of a new life through the Torah, many continue to call for peace in the city plagued with violent crime.
"Enough is enough," Efraim's other cousin, Sarah Marshall, said. "It's time to live and not to die and not to fight, it's time to live. If you take a step back and look at the gift you were given, the gift called life and you use it to make a beautiful mark on this world you will have an incredible effect on yourself and everybody around you."
Rasheed Morris, 17, was identified by a co-defendant as the shooter in the attempted carjacking, prosecutors told the court in June. Morris was 16 years old at the time of the murder.
Investigators explained CCTV video was used to identify co-defendants Omarion Anderson, William Clinton III, and Morris.
Anderson pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in May while Morris took the same plea in June. Clinton III is due in court in November.
U.S. Representative for Maryland's 7th congressional district, Kweisi Mfume spoke during the celebration about Baltimore's battle with violent crime.
"It is a violent city. Make no mistake about it," Mfume said. "We, those of us who have the honor to serve in any capacity, have to acknowledge that, in every day, make crime, violent crime, our number one priority."