Thank you for being with us in community at this difficult time. We’re grateful to be able to gather here, in the heart of our city. We do so not as a sign of protest, rather in appreciation for the safety we feel here. We are grateful to our city leaders and the Ann Arbor Police Department for their support.
This evening,
- We gather to support one another at a difficult time – when our family is under attack and members of our own community feel vulnerable and scared
- We gather to raise our voices in solidarity with Israel whose citizens were cruelly attacked on October 7,
- We gather to raise our voices to elevate the story of the 212 hostages being held in Gaza, citizens of Israel and of the United States and of countries from around the globe – Israeli soldiers and Israeli civilians including over 30 children, 20 senior citizens, and people who are ill, disabled and injured.
We all know that what happened on October 7 was not about a land dispute. It was, in the words of Israeli Moran Stavitzki, a war about humanity. A terror organization, intent of ridding the Jewish people from the land of Israel made a calculated decision to conduct a brutal attack on Israeli civilians with the intent of destroying communities and inflicting wide-spread damage.
Our community is grateful for the many voices – including the Presidents of University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, President Joe Biden, and others – who condemned this heinous attack.
Unfortunately, too many others, have turned to blaming the victim calling the barbarous actions of terrorists the “result of the decades-long Israeli occupation of Palestine.”
Or elected officials using their platforms to call Israel’s defense of its civilians a genocide – causing families here in Ann Arbor to feel unseen and unsafe.
Many in our community have long called for a two-state solution and have spoken and acted strongly on behalf of the Palestinian people and their right to their own self-determination, yet they have been betrayed by those with whom they thought they were in partnership – who have not raised their voices in condemnation of terror and the taking of civilian hostages.
To be clear, our Jewish community is most definitely concerned about the loss of civilian life in Gaza and encourages Israel to do all it can to protect civilians as it battles Hamas. But let’s also be clear that it is Hamas, not Israel, who endangers Israeli AND Palestinian civilians. It is Hamas who builds their murderous infrastructure under hospitals, schools and mosques, knowing that the IDF will avoid those targets. Israel can no longer allow this murderous regime to operate on its borders.
And we, the Jewish community and our allies in Washtenaw County must not stay silent as Israel and the Jewish community is under attack. Right now, the world feels like a very narrow bridge. But the main point, is not to be afraid.