By: Anastasia Merkulova
Over 500 students of different faiths and backgrounds gathered for the University of Maryland’s Students for Justice for Palestine vigil held in the secured area of McKeldin Mall on Monday evening. 

Oct. 7, 2023, marks the one-year anniversary of Hamas militants killing over 1,200 people in Israel. Israeli operations in Gaza have killed over 41,000 Palestinians since, according to the Associated Press. 

The vigil’s first presenter, who requested to remain anonymous, spoke about how desensitized the world became to the deaths of Arabs.

“The next time you see hundreds murdered in Lebanon or children killed by an airstrike in Gaza, don’t think, oh, that’s unfortunate, but it’s just the Middle East. Unfortunate is not the word you use when children are being blown to bits,” they said. 

A list containing 186 names of people killed in Gaza was read, revealing that every name belonged to an infant under 1 year old. The audience was silent, with some attendees tearing up. 

Despite its initial cancellation, the “All Day for Palestine” event, co-hosted by UMD’s Jewish Voice for Peace chapter, honored people killed in Gaza after Oct.7. The event lasted all day with ongoing teach-ins, poetry readings and interfaith prayers to end the night. 

Daniela Colombi, a junior astronomy and physics major and SJP board member, said that SJP was initially hoping for 25 to 50 people to attend but expected more after the controversy surrounding the event.  

SJP sued UMD, President Darryll Pines and the University System of Maryland Board of Regents for restricting non-university sponsored events planned on campus for that day, including the vigil.

“As the person who testified on behalf of SJP, I’d say the courtroom feels like a place, not of justice, but of intimidation and repression,” Colombi said. 

On Oct. 1, “a judge in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland granted SJP’s motion for a preliminary injunction, requiring the University to reinstate SJP’s reservation for McKeldin Mall on Oct. 7, 2024, subject to a court-imposed bond on SJP,” according to UMD Right Now. 

Some Jewish students wearing shirts that read “Never Forget 10.7.2023” came to express their opposing views before the event was moved into a secured area. 

“I feel like today, on Oct. 7, especially, should be a day for remembering the Hamas brutal violence,” a freshman, who requested to be anonymous, said. “I don’t see any problem with Palestinians remembering victims… I think the fact that they’re doing this on Oct. 7, specifically, just has a sort of negative connotation.”

Abel Amene, a senior physics and economics major who is on SJP’s board, challenges this view and believes that Oct. 7 is an appropriate day to mourn Palestinian lives. 

“Why not this day, when every day marks death, when every day marks genocide? Why not this day when 40,000 people have died since this date?” Amene asked. 

Amene said he hopes that the vigil will bring people together – to learn and to mourn – while also highlighting any contradictions present in the UMD community and institution. 

Serene Kanj, a graduate student studying marketing analytics whose family is from Lebanon, was present before the event was moved to the enclosure and hoped to attend the evening vigil.

“We’re not just commemorating some lives,” Kanj said. “We’re there to really show that we care about each and every person who was unjustly lost over this whole crisis.”

Kanj said that Islamophobia – which is defined as the irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against Islam or people who practice Islam – is present all around the world.

“We really only see Muslims on the side of other Muslims, and it’s super important to see that different people from different backgrounds are there to support each other,” Kanj said. 

Hershel Barnstein, a senior biology major and JVP member, was one of the presenters during JVP’s “Jewish Labor Bund” teach-in. 

“We have many allies, and we do not discriminate, but for all intents and purposes, we are a Jewish group, and we are advocating for Jews as well as Palestinians,” Barnstein said. 

He noted that the reason the vigil was made interfaith is because the movement is interfaith. 

“We have many Muslims, Jews and even Christians who are standing with us together, side by side, so we wanted to give them all a chance to mourn the dead,” Barnstein said. 

Rifka Handelman, a senior environmental science and policy major and JVP’s president, read the Mourner’s Kaddish — a Jewish prayer recited in memory of the dead — during the vigil. 

After the prayer was read, presenters stepped off the podium to give Muslim students a moment to pray. 

An anonymous student said that to her, the vigil and the prayer mean “to reach those who I can no longer reach, whether that be they’re still in Gaza, they’re still in Palestine…. Or they are no longer here on this earth, and I want to communicate with them through prayer.”

Handelman demonstrated a Jewish tradition of mourning the dead after the Muslim prayer ended. They lit a candle to symbolize a yahrzeit – which means anniversary in Yiddish – candle to remind attendees that the yahrzeit must be observed for all people who died on this day. 

“If everyone here at this vigil lit a yahrzeit candle for one person who has died in Palestine since last Oct. 7, it would be nothing compared to the scale of death [in Gaza],” Handelman said. “There are not even enough people at this university to light a candle for every single person.”

Jack Haberman, a freshman finance major, protested the vigil from outside of the fence. 

“I don’t know what the Jews that support Palestine are doing here. I don’t think they should be here,” Haberman said. “If the Muslims want to pray, let them pray. But I say this to everyone:, I don’t think this is about land. I think they just want to exterminate the Jews.” 

Some Palestinian-American students shared emotional family stories, including a junior kinesiology major who requested to remain anonymous. She said her grandparents were among the first to be expelled from their homes in the 1948 Nakba – the mass displacement of Palestinians during the Arab-Israeli war.  

“They were forced into refugee camps within their own country until they were eventually expelled altogether,” she said. “My grandmother still dreams of returning to their homeland, and my grandfather passed away, believing they would one day walk on their rightful soil again.”

“We are all one, and none of us are free until we are all free,” said an anonymous student to conclude her speech. 

Featured Image: Students chant and fly keffiyehs at McKeldin Mall on Oct. 7, 2024. Photo by Anastasia Merkulova.