For Jewish college students, living away from home during the recent Hamas-led attack on Israel and the ensuing violence has been emotionally painful, frightening and isolating. And it’s made for long days and nights for two rabbis who offer pastoral care to Jewish students at the University of Oregon.
Rabbi Berel Gurevich took to Facebook Tuesday with a short post that begins: “Parents of Jewish Ducks, please know that we are here for your children in any way.”
In an interview with KLCC Wednesday, Gurevich said “almost everyone knows someone that knows someone that was either killed or kidnapped, or someone that's fighting. We're all worried about it. It's very personal, very close to home.”
Gurevich leads the Eugene Chabad, a kind of home away from home for Jewish students, who he says have been coming in nonstop this week. While it’s difficult for students just to juggle new routines, classes or work, he said the collective trauma they’re experiencing makes it even more imperative to ensure students don’t endure it alone.
“This is not distant. This is very close to home for everyone here,” he said, noting he’d had a conversation with an Israeli student he met who knew people who were either taken hostage or died at a music festival during the attacks.
To meet the needs of the campus’s Jewish students, Gurevich has said the Eugene Chabad will be open 24/7. For a meal. A hug. A shoulder to cry on. Or just hanging out.
“These students feel lonely and they feel far, far away from their families. So we're trying to be there for them in every way we can. We’re creating a space to come together and be there for each other,” he said.
Gurevich was among the Jewish religious leaders who attended a student-led vigil on campus after the initial attack. He called it “a very special evening of connection and prayer” during which the community mourned for those who were lost and prayed for those who were taken hostage to come back. Joining together in unity and pride, and being visible and supportive of one another, was important for the Jewish community, he said.
Rabbi Meir Goldstein also attended the vigil. He’s a Judaic Studies instructor at the University of Oregon, and is also the senior Jewish educator for Oregon Hillel, a nonprofit that serves the Jewish student communities at the University of Oregon and Oregon State University. In an interview with KLCC, he said the ripple effect of the violence is intense, palpable and far reaching.
“We just experienced the most violent pogrom since the Holocaust. So that reverberates through all of the Jewish students, and students with Jewish family members, even if they themselves are not Jewish, as well as faculty and staff,” Goldstein said.
In nearly a decade of work on campus, he said he’s never seen anything like it.
This week Goldstein tried to answer historic and geographical questions about the conflict from students in his class. In his pastoral role outside the classroom, he spoke on how to balance being connected to a community for support, while simultaneously feeling its suffering and being mindful of self care.
Just as a parent might do, Gurevich and Goldstein are working to just be there for students. Sitting with them. Crying with them. Holding space for them.
“You can absolutely go to the presumption that anyone you know who's a Jew, regardless whether they're religious or not, they're feeling pain and they're feeling isolated. Reach out to them. Check in with them,” Goldstein said, adding to do it “now.”
There are times when it’s difficult to know what to say, which Goldstein says is okay. What matters, he said, is to be supportive by letting people know that you care.
“Even if you don't have words, just tell them you don’t have words and you're thinking about [them]. It...it goes a long way,” he said, taking a moment to regroup after becoming overcome with emotion.
In addition to reaching out to others, Goldstein said it’s also important to speak out against atrocities by naming them and holding those who commit them accountable.
“Stand with Jews, stand with Israel. Israel not only has a right, but an obligation, to care for our citizens and protect them. Just like it says in the Declaration of Independence, it's the primary job of every government to secure the safety of its citizens,” Goldstein said.
On Monday, Kris Winter, Interim Vice President for Student Life at the university issued a statement recognizing the loss of life and violence in Israel and Gaza, calling for compassion, and offering counseling and support services to all students, and to students, faculty and staff with direct ties to the region.
“Even though we are far from the battlefront we are doing all we can to fight darkness through adding in light, through doing good deeds – Mitzvah – which we believe brings good energy into the world and does have a real effect, even thousands of miles away,” Gurevich said.
“We are a strong people with a strong history and we are going to pull through this,” he said.
