Students of Pierce College mourn the loss of people murdered in the weekend terrorist attacks in Israel.
Rabbi Isser Kluwgant began the small group meeting of students at the Mall on Monday afternoon with a prayer from Psalms 20 with a solemn moment to grieve about the weekend Hamas attacks on Israel.
Hamas committed coordinated attacks the morning of Saturday, Oct. 7, across the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip beginning with rocket barrages and infiltrating the border fence. In nearby towns, hundreds of Israelis were killed and an unknown number were taken hostage.
Kluwgant said that students of his nonprofit group Chabad at Pierce have friends and family, or at least know people, who were killed or who have gone missing in the areas of skirmishes.
“They really needed support, so we put this together to do some prayer, to do some study and connect ourselves with the word of God,” Kluwgant said.
The rabbi was joined with his wife Mushka and young daughter Chana to provide sheets of Shema Yisrael Prayer, scripture from the Torah, and slices of kosher pizza for the attending students.
Though the attacks weighed heavily on their minds, the group of Chabad at Pierce proceeded with talks about interpretations of creation and analyzing scripture per their weekly routine.
Double major in psychology and quantum physics Sian Ashkenazi, who has family in Israel including his mother, remembers how everything unfolded.
“I hear Israel being bombed quite frequently unfortunately, but I never heard of something this big,” Ashkenazi said. “It’s a lot more complicated than people think. As much as I love Israel, they’re not 100% innocent.”
It was the first meeting American Sign Language major Lior Klein attended.
“The Jewish community, especially the Israeli one, feels devastated and betrayed by a lot of people who are justifying what’s going on,” Klein said. “I’m a big proponent of peace in the region, but you got to call it all what it is.”
There have been demonstrations throughout the United States and the world from both supporters of Israel and from Free Palestine groups, a few of which have become violent.
Klein is taking the advice of the rabbi and relying on prayer rather than focusing on the negative imagery and military operations.
“I hope everybody is safe from Hamas, not just Israelis but the people of Palestine,” Klein said.
Some of the students prayed with the tefillin provided by Kluwgant, which has straps embedded with texts from the Torah in a way to symbolize a tradition handed down from the time of Moses.
Kluwgant said a key takeaway from the meeting was how to turn the student’s anger and grief into something productive rather than direct it on the Israeli Defense Force.
“God runs the world,” Kluwgant said. “Right now, our time is to defend and ensure safety and security. We’ll worry about blaming and whose fault it is later.”
