Over the weekend, Hamas — a Palestinian organization that governs the occupied territory of Gaza and is labeled by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization — launched surprise attacks in Israel, killing hundreds of people and taking over 100 hostages. Israel retaliated, and the region has been thrown into chaos. In LA, a city with large populations from both the Israeli and Palestinian diaspora, many people are feeling the effects of those strikes.
“The Jewish community worldwide is so small. And we're connected to the folks who are there. I have a couple of congregants whose two cousins are being held right now as hostages. So it's very, very, very alive for our community,” shares Rabbi Susan Goldberg. “One of the things that people have expressed is it's so odd to be walking around in the world and most of the world is going on as usual here in Los Angeles. But for our community, the Jewish community of Los Angeles and all over the world are just in shock.”
LA’s Jewish community has been coming together at rallies and religious services to process the grief from the attacks.
“There's also the … incredible fear and insecurity about what's coming next. This is just atrocious violence that just happened. Unfortunately, the ways that people often react is in retaliatory violence as well. And so just worried about the violence that is also happening to innocent civilians in Gaza as a result, and then the violence that will come back, and then the violence that will go back and forth. And so also a lot of what our community is trying to do is to really hold hope and pray for peace that this just incredible atrocity that Hamas committed in Israel doesn't then lead to just ongoing killing in the region.”
Salam al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, agrees with Goldberg’s take on Hamas’ attack, calling it “horrific.” “Targeting civilians, of course, in both of our faiths is not allowed, it's forbidden. Unfortunately, the way events have turned for the last, I would say 56 years since the occupation began in Gaza and the West Bank is that the only relevant groups have been the violent groups, and we have erased the voices of the people. The civilians … don't have a voice in this and so they’re going to suffer even more.”
Both Goldberg and al-Marayati have worked to bridge the gap between Jewish and Muslim communities of LA over the years. “We are there for the Jewish community when there's antisemitism, and the Jewish community will actually form a human defense chain around our mosques, when there are attacks against Muslims,” explains al-Marayati. “I believe that Los Angeles is an important example for the rest of the country in the success and the strides that we have made on interfaith collaboration and cooperation on the Middle East, as well as so many other issues.”
“Some of the very first people who reached out to me to check on how I was doing, how our community was doing, were my Muslim colleagues,” shares Goldberg. “And in particular Palestinian Muslim colleagues who reached out to just express their horror at what was happening. And that these Hamas groups do not represent the values of the Muslim tradition.”
The faith leaders spoke of a need for a non-violent solution, hoping that political advocacy from Angelenos could help sway an approach to the conflict. “That’s one of the roles we have here in the United States — in our interfaith partnerships and with communities of all people who can advocate for our government — to really try and help us get to a new possibility in that region,” says Goldberg.