The death toll in Israel and the Gaza Strip continues to rise after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a multi-front attack on Israel Saturday. The Israeli government has responded with airstrikes and a total blockade on Gaza.
Members of Mississippi's Jewish community, many with friends and family in Israel, have struggled with feeling helpless while seeing the brutality of the war from afar. Monday night, between 50 to 60 people gathered in the Holocaust garden at the Beth Israel synagogue in Jackson for a vigil to comfort each other and pray for their community.
Rabbi Joseph Rosen, who leads that congregation, says that in trying times, coming together to remember their people’s shared history is essential. Inside the synagogue, there is a Torah scroll in a glass case with the words “memory sustains humanity” above it, a constant reminder of the need to keep and share their stories.
“Being in a place that reminds us of our heritage, of our story, difficult as that may be, is also the appropriate place to find hope,” Rosen said
Rosen said that he and others are praying for the millions of Israeli and Palestinian civilians currently in harm's way.
The complex conflict, which goes back decades, is sparking questions and discussion in Mississippi and around the world. Susan Allen, an associate professor of international relations at the University of Mississippi, has been trying to help her students understand the deep-rooted context of the war this week.
“This one girl was like, ‘who's the bad guy’ and I was like, I don't know that there is just one bad guy,” Allen said. “She really wanted it to be a clear story of black hats and white hats. Everybody has legitimate grievances. Everybody has been the victim. But there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of understanding or recognition of common experience between the two groups, and that just perpetuates the fighting.”
Americans also struggle to understand just how small the Gaza Strip is, according to Allen. More than two million people live in a 25-mile strip that is between four and five miles across at its widest point.
“If you put two-thirds of the population of Mississippi, standing on the highway between Oxford, and Batesville, you'd have the kind of population density that they have in Gaza,” Allen said.
