Father recounts prayers, long drive to pick up son from shooting scene

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 11 (JTA) — Prayer is part of the daily routine for Richard Macales. But when he thought his young son might be in danger from a gunman at his Jewish day camp, Macales’ prayers took on a new urgency. And they were answered. Macales was working in his office in the University of Southern California at Los Angeles Tuesday morning when his mother called to say that there had been a shooting at the North Valley JCC, where Richard and Beverly Macales’ 3-year old son, David, attends nursery school. Macales frantically phoned his wife at their home in Granada Hills, but couldn’t find her. To make matters worse, he had traveled to work in a van pool. Toni Lawrence, Macales’ boss, immediately offered to drive him to the scene. Traveling north on the freeway “felt like the second longest drive of my life,” Macales recalled. The first was 10 years ago, when his first child unexpectedly died of natural causes. As more news of the shooting came over the car radio, Macales, a bearded, Orthodox Jew who wears a yarmulka, recited the Tehillim, the Psalms of David, frequently offered in time of danger. Approaching the North Valley JCC, police had set up barricades all along the perimeter, and Macales had to park several blocks from the JCC. His son, David, a blue-eyed boy who also wears a yarmulka, somehow had managed to strike out on his own and was sitting quietly on a curb. David cried “Abba,” or Dad, and hugged his father, but otherwise seemed quiet and composed. Recalling the moment, Macales said, “By saying the Psalms of King David, I was able to find my own little King David.” Then father and son were surrounded by television cameras and crews, including two from Israel. But Macales’ anxiety wasn’t over. His other son, 2-year old Aaron, attends the JCC nursery school three times a week, and Macales wasn’t sure whether his wife had sent Aaron that day. He finally tracked down his wife, Beverly, at his mother’s house. She had been shopping, blissfully unaware of the crisis. She reassured her husband that Aaron was with her. Beverly Macales agreed that David had apparently survived the ordeal well. “He just told me, ‘Eema (Mom), I heard a loud pop, then the teacher told us to hold hands and we ran outside.”