A vigil organized by OSU Hillel and JewishColumbus took place on the Oval around 6 p.m. Tuesday, with over 300 students and community members praying over the loss of six Israeli hostages and all hostages who remain in Gaza.
According to the Associated Press, Israel announced Sunday it had recovered the bodies of six hostages captured Oct. 7, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose parents recently spoke at the Democratic National Convention Aug. 21. Five of the six hostages killed by Hamas were captured from the Nova Music Festival, including Goldberg-Polin, according to the Associated Press.
Since the announcement of the hostages’ deaths, large protests have been occurring in Israeli cities such as Tel Aviv, with participants demanding a cease-fire deal to release the remaining hostages in Gaza, according to the Associated Press.
The war in Gaza began Oct. 7, 2023 after Hamas — a Palestinian militant group — entered neighboring Israeli towns on a major Jewish holiday, Simchat Torah, where about 1,200 people were killed, according to NPR.
Israel declared war the next day and launched airstrikes on Gaza, destroying entire neighborhoods and killing thousands of Palestinian civilians in the months that followed, with the current death toll surpassing 40,000, according to the Associated Press.
This is a continuation of a 75-year conflict with previous Israel-Hamas wars in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021, according to prior Lantern reporting and the Associated Press.
Speeches
Students and community members spoke and delivered prayers at the vigil, with many attendees wearing yellow ribbons pinned to their shirts, which represent solidarity with the hostages and their families, said Abby Mehr, a fourth-year in STEM education and student board co-president of OSU Hillel. Five Ohio State Police Department — also known as OSUPD — officers were present at the vigil.
Rabbi Aaron Portman — campus rabbi and senior Jewish educator at OSU Hillel — was among the community members who delivered speeches.
Portman pointed to how the Torah — the first five books of the Hebrew Bible — considers “pidyon shvuyim,” or the redeeming of captives, a “mitzvah rabbah,” or “a deed of immense greatness or importance.”
“[The redeeming of captives] supersedes the command to clothe the needy, to feed the hungry and thirsty, even to protect those in mortal danger, for a captive is actively living through the worst possible hell,” Portman said in his speech. “A hostage is hungry and thirsty, a hostage is alone and, as we sadly know all too well, a hostage is at constant risk of losing their life. Our tradition demands we remember this fact and do everything we can to bring those who are taken from us home.”
Naomi Lamb, CEO of OSU Hillel, highlighted in her speech how college students may see themselves reflected in the hostages who were killed, as they were close in age to students.
“[Goldberg-Polin] was so young, had dreams of traveling the world and had his whole life ahead of him,” Lamb said in her speech. “It’s easy to imagine yourselves as Hersh [Goldberg-Polin], to put yourself in his shoes, and by doing so, the impact of his and the other hostages’ deaths is felt even more deeply. Being a college student is not easy. Each day, when you walk to classes, there are countless reminders of the conflict. These instances cannot be considered in isolation. It all compounds and can feel overwhelming, but we are strong, we are resilient and we are proud.”
Sarah Frankel, a fourth-year in public policy analysis, quoted poet Yehuda Amichai in her speech, saying “the air over Jerusalem is saturated with prayers and dreams” after the loss of the six hostages — Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, Ori Danino and Goldberg-Polin.
“I pray our words blanket the dream of Israel with peace, hope and an abundance of warmth,” Frankel said to the crowd. “I wish for our prayers to affix themselves to those of the world, to form a rainbow, as in the times of Noah. May our flood of tears quickly end. Hersh, Carmel, Eden, Alex, Almog, Ori — you are the joys that remain in our sadness. May we feel you in the brightest of our days.”
Event context
Mehr said she and OSU Hillel co-President Isaac Weiss organized the vigil Sunday after they received the news the hostages had died, especially to mourn Goldberg-Polin, whose death, Mehr said, “hit everyone close to home.”
“It hit everyone really hard, especially because one of the hostages, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who’s an American, who a lot of people here know or know someone who knows,” Mehr said. “I think he’s been sort of the face of all the hostages, and so he’s been this sort of beacon of hope that if we can bring Hersh home, then it’ll be okay.”
Mehr said it was not her first thought to organize the vigil, but she and Weiss did so after other students expressed a desire “to do something.” She said the purpose of the event was for Jewish students on campus to “feel like they are not alone.”
“Non-Jews don’t understand the innate connection that the Jewish people have to Israel and the Israeli people,” Mehr said. “As much as we love having non-Jewish allies, it’s often hard to connect and to get them to understand, and so being around other Jews is really the best thing we can do.”
Lamb said the vigil would not have happened if students were not involved.
“We are here to serve the students,” Lamb said. “And the impetus of putting the vigil together was because students felt it would help them have an opportunity to process their emotions, and be vulnerable and grieve and mourn in a way that was really important right now, and this was fully student-led. We invited a few community members to participate in it because we wanted to honor them and give them that opportunity and show gratitude, quite frankly, because they have supported us through challenging times. But students put this together.”
Mehr said, ultimately, people “needed a space to mourn and be upset.”
Mehr said OSU Hillel obtained a space reservation from the university for outside of Thompson Library on short notice, even though the Office of Student Life’s website states student organizations should submit requests for outdoor events at least two weeks in advance.
“We reached out to the administrators in charge of space reservation, and they understood the situation and that we needed a space to come together,” Mehr said. “And they worked and met with us and made sure we had the space reserved. And unfortunately, at events where there are a lot of Jews, we need a lot of security, so we had to make sure we had enough security.”
Dave Isaacs, communications and media relations manager at the Office of Student Life, confirmed OSU Hillel had the space reserved.
Mehr said even though “it can be hard to get people to understand” how they feel about the war in Gaza, when they explained the situation to the university, they received the support they needed.
“It’s hard to get non-Jews to understand, but they do understand if you say ‘a friend of a friend was just murdered in Gaza, and I need a space to mourn,’” Mehr said. “People will often be there for you, so luckily we have their support on this.”
This story was updated Wednesday, Sept. 4 at 8:56 a.m. to include confirmation of a space reservation, 10:09 a.m. to properly quote a portion of Frankel’s speech and at 11:18 a.m. to correct the spelling of Isaac Weiss.
