Editor’s Note: This story includes mention of potentially triggering situations, such as kidnapping, violence and death.
Shadows stretched until the sky turned black over a gathering of more than 800 on Monday night, where local Jewish organizations held a vigil mourning the first anniversary of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
It’s been a dark year for Jewish people worldwide, one that began with the violent attack that killed nearly 1,200 in Israel. More than 100 hostages remain in Gaza, and a third are believed to be dead.
But local Jewish organizations and speakers at Monday’s vigil behind Alumni Center charted a path to unity and commemorated those whose lives were taken.
***
IU Hillel President Leah Sterbcow was first to address the crowd.
“Our community has faced extreme adversity and uncertainty,” she said. “Time and again we were knocked down, but every single time we got back up stronger than before.”
The past year has been challenging for Jewish students at IU. The Oct. 7 attack left many shocked and heartbroken.
Sterbcow found herself in the same place as many Jewish people in Bloomington.
She burst into tears in a store hours after learning of the attack. She hid in the front corner, not wanting to make a scene.
“At that point, I think my tears were mostly from the fear of the unknown,” she said.
On the other side of the world, the Israeli government responded forcefully.
The ensuing conflict saw Israel retake militant-occupied towns and launch airstrikes into Gaza the same day. The Israeli military began a ground invasion later that month. Most of Palestine’s population of 2.3 million have been displaced since the attack, with more than 42,000 dead and 96,000 injured.
In the wake of the conflict, antisemitism in America jumped rapidly. The Anti-Defamation League, in a report released Oct. 6, recorded more than 10,000 antisemitic incidents since Oct. 7, 2023, a 200% rise from the same period the year before. More than 1,200 incidents occurred on college campuses, the organization said.
The ADL recorded more than 3,000 incidents with “regular explicit expressions of support for terrorist groups”, including Hamas and Hezbollah. Excluding these incidents, the ADL counted 7,523 episodes of antisemitism, a 103% increase from 2022.
***
Jewish people last week celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, falling from Oct. 2-4 this year.
The holiday is one of the most significant times of the year for Jewish people, Sterbcow said. The following 10 days until Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, are for reflection.
Sterbcow said this Rosh Hashanah, and subsequent days of reflection, has been one of the most impactful of her life. “When we get to come together, it’s always meaningful,” she said — but this year, she was able to put the past year’s anger, fear and confusion aside, just for a moment.
***
Israeli IU graduate student Roee Alper and IU Hillel Israeli fellow Almog Avraham shared the experience of losing or fearing for loved ones in Israel during the Hamas-led attack.
Avraham, who was in a hotel in London with her family at the time of the attack, recounted agonizing hours spent waiting to hear from her friends at the Nova Music Festival. Hamas targeted the festival of more than 3,000 people in Re’im, just outside of Gaza.
“Me and my family were terrified,” she said. “We didn't go one step outside of the hotel. We all were silent.”
On the main stage screen at the vigil, Avraham showed a video captured by some of her friends at the festival. Under the backdrop of gunfire and roaring machines, a camera manned by shaking hands showed victims running away and diving for cover.
In Alper’s video, the camerawork was eerily still.
His sister Maya sent him a video as she hid from Hamas militants for seven hours, leaving behind a message in case she didn’t survive.
She was in Israel visiting from Guatemala. She asked Roee to help her find a job in Israel while she was there. He found her one working at Nova.
In the video, Maya reassured herself and her family that everything was going to be okay.
“I’m so, so proud of myself,” she whispered in the video. “I’m going to make it.”
***
Sophie Shafran, president of Hoosiers for Israel, said she didn’t grow up in a house with an especially strong connection to Israel.
But her brothers both enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces, and she became involved in pro-Israel activism as she grew older.
She led the community in a prayer for the IDF on Monday night.
Her grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. When she and her brothers entered their 20s and began forming their identities, they looked back to him. Her grandfather wanted to join the IDF, but never did. So, her brothers enlisted.
Most people in the U.S. heard about the Oct. 7 attack the day after, due to the time zone difference. But Shafran stayed up late that night, learned of it from family members and couldn’t fall asleep. The sense of security she previously felt for the Jewish people and Israel had broken.
This Rosh Hashanah, Shafran said, was very hard for many Jewish people. At Hillel, one table sat empty in tribute to the hostages.
***
Six metal detectors and at least 14 security and event staff lined the entrance to the memorial site. Sterbcow said it was a precaution against the rise in antisemitism on college campuses over the past year.
Sterbcow first felt campus would be tense for Jewish students in the days following Oct. 7. The turning point came two days later, on Oct. 9, when IU Hillel and IU Chabad organized a vigil at Dunn Meadow to honor those killed in the attack.
The vigil one year ago was planned to take place at Sample Gates, but IU recommended it be moved to Dunn Meadow because of a large expected turnout. The Palestine Solidarity Committee decided to hold what it originally called a “counterprotest” at Sample Gates, where attendees said they were advocating for peace.
During Hillel and Chabad’s vigil, several people drove past yelling “free Palestine” and waving Palestinian flags. That, many Jewish students have said, made them feel mocked. The boiling tension and hostility on campus afterward felt devastating to Sterbcow.
Some pro-Israeli demonstrators arrived later at the Sample Gates protest, where a clash ensued. People from the two groups of demonstrators shouted toward each other
Shafran said a pro-Palestinian protester called her a Nazi at Sample Gates on Oct. 9, 2023.
“As the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, that one was probably one of the hardest comments to get,” Shafran said. “I don't feel welcome.”
This year, the PSC, along with the IU Divestment Coalition and IU Middle Eastern Student Association, posted a “call to action” to protest at Sample Gates on Monday, the first anniversary of Oct. 7. Sterbcow said holding a demonstration on the first anniversary of the attack was “disgusting.”
One of her biggest concerns right now, Sterbcow said, is that she doesn’t know when tension on campus will cool down. That uncertainty weighs on her and many other students, she said.
“This should not have been in my four-year college experience,” she said.
Sterbcow traveled to Israel this past summer. It was a type of discomfort she’d never felt before, to lay in bed just miles away from the hostages living in “hell” in Gaza. She said the trip was overall wonderful for her and was not her first time going to the country. But her heart felt heavier.
“Here, I feel like I can’t do anything to bring the hostages home,” Sterbcow said.
IU Hillel held an event to remember six hostages killed in Gaza in September, stressing the importance of unity. Sterbcow said while she doesn’t personally know anyone killed or taken hostage in the attack, many people she knows do.
Still, she said the tension and hostility since Oct. 7 have deepened her connection with Israel. That doesn’t mean the government, she said, nor the government’s actions. She said Israel is omnipresent in the Jewish tradition, from history to religious texts to many Jewish peoples’ identities.
And because she feels it’s under attack, that connection has only grown stronger.
***
Dena Shink tries to practice her tenor saxophone every day. She said she hasn’t missed a beat since middle school.
As the memorial drew to a close, Shink was the second-to-last to take the stage. The crowd was silent, but not diminished. Few, if any, left the memorial early. Shink had a full audience.
Flitting oranges and yellows lit up the area just in front of the main stage, where nearly all of the crowd had congregated. They lit candles to commemorate the deceased.
Shink played a rendition of a Jewish mourning song, “El Malei Rachamim.” She composed the variation herself, inspired by her great-grandfather.
“El Malei Rachamim,” which means “God full of compassion,” is a prayer recited for the souls of the dead, sometimes on the anniversary of their deaths.
“We don't get to do this this often in Bloomington. It's so important,” Sterbcow said. “Our strength is in our numbers, and I take incredible pride to stand here this evening with community leadership across the Bloomington area.”
Shink’s haunting vibrato rang out over the field, capping a night of mourning, but also one of unity.
