Candles lit the dark courtyard around the Memorial Union on Wednesday night as students gathered in the cold. Small candles lined the cement around the plants in the center of the courtyard, shining bright in a dark moment in Jewish history. A violent tragedy has taken place, but there is no violence in response. There are no loud cries for justice, no shouts for blood, no rush to organize a riot or a military response.
Instead, Sun Devils for Israel, Chabad at ASU, Hillel at ASU and Jewish Arizonans on Campus were found in peaceful silence; silence in remembrance of those who died in Jerusalem Monday, their innocent blood shed in the most horrific and shocking circumstances.
The candlelight vigil was held for one reason: to remember Rabbi Avraham Goldberg, Rabbi Moshe Twersky, Rabbi Aryeh Kupinsky, Rabbi Kalman Levine, and Officer Zidan Saif. The first four were praying to God, wrapping tefillin, just trying to worship. And then they were butchered — cut down in the middle of the synagogue by Palestinian terrorists armed with guns and a meat cleaver. They were massacred when they should have been the safest. The last one? He was a Druze police officer who succumbed to wound he sustained while trying to protect these four holy men.
But these weren’t just ordinary rabbis; they were peace-loving and tried to make the world a better place every day. One of them was from Kansas City, Missouri, and one was from Detroit. In fact, three of the four rabbis were American citizens, the last was British. All of them will be sorely missed by those whose lives they touched.
“I will always remember our friend Moshe, his modesty, his brilliance, his smile, his kindness,” said Naty Katz of the Maimonides School in Brookline of Rabbi Moshe Twersky.
Yet even as the details of these senseless attacks are recounted, even with the anger and the bitterness that something like this can provoke, I still hear only solemn silence and words of peace from the Jews here at ASU. I do not hear hate, or see anger or violence.
Instead, I see mourning students responding with courage in the face of pain. Chana Goldstein of Jewish Arizonans On Campus at ASU, responded by saying: “When President (Mahmoud) Abbas (of the Palestinian Authority) calls for hate, I call for love. When the media calls for judgment, I call for understanding. When Hamas call for death, I call for life.”
The students at this vigil organized by Sun Devils for Israel have shown true courage. They showed the courage that can only come when one understands that in order to fix what is happening in the Middle East and around the world, we cannot turn to the knife, or the gun as the terrorists who committed these vicious and uncalled for attacks did. In order to fix what is happening, we must see people as people, not as objects of hate.
That is not to say that the Palestinians on campus don't share this opinion. Ibrahim Halloum, the president of Students for Justice in Palestine responded at the Fast-a-Thon 2014: Interfaith Charity Dinner that his group condemns the violence, especially because they are a non-violent group. However, he says that we shouldn't just look at the circumstances on the ground, but rather what caused them. His view is that the institutional oppression that Israel has perpetuated caused the attack in the first place.
While I may disagree with Mr. Halloum about what the root cause of the attack was, we both agree that there is a need for peace and nonviolence. It's time to stop being divided and pointing fingers. It’s time to come together and build each other up, not divide and rip each other to pieces with our actions and our words. It’s time to stop the negative rhetoric, and speak life into each other’s lives.
Let’s follow the example of Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barack Obama in condemning violence and advocating peace, so that something like this never happens again. Let’s listen to the words of Chana Goldstein and use this moment to build a more intimate and positive community. Let’s try to prevent another horrific tragedy like the one that occurred this past Monday.
Reach the columnist at jbrunne2@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @MrAmbassador4
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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