Courtesy of Eytan Israel

Last Friday, members of Yale’s Jewish community held a gathering to mourn the six hostages who were killed by Hamas last week and raise awareness for the 101 hostages still in captivity in Gaza. 

The gathering on Cross Campus featured readings in memory of each of the six hostages, speeches and prayers. Around 100 Yale students and New Haven community members stood around a Shabbat table with a place set for each hostage still in captivity.

“In the competition of pain, there are no winners. These are innocent hostages taken from their homes 336 days ago versus an evil terrorist organization. This was an American citizen among many others that was executed after being held hostage for 330 days,” Eytan Israel ’26, a Jewish student and organizer of the event, said at the beginning of the vigil. “This is a humanitarian issue. This is a world issue.” 

Israel spoke first about the two objectives of the event: to remember the six hostages — Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino — who were shot and killed last week while in captivity in Gaza and to advocate for the safe return of the remaining hostages. 

A different student spoke about each of the six killed hostages, reading about their lives and quotes from their family members. 

Yossi Moff ’27 read a quote by the mother of Eden Yerushalmi from her funeral. Yerushalmi was a 24-year-old from Tel Aviv. 

“‘I wanted my daughter back, my sweet girl who was full of life. You were more than my daughter. You were my best friend,” Moff read. “‘I wanted to get back my Eden, my funny Eden, the one making us laugh, the jokester with the best laugh.’” 

After each speech, the gatherers held a moment of silence. 

After the event, Israel spoke to the News about one of the killed hostages: Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli 24-year-old. 

“One of those hostages was an American named Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was born in California, and has a lot of ties to our community,” Israel told the News. “We wanted to raise awareness that there was an American, just like any of us, that was a few years older than us, that we could have been in the same place as him.” 

Twice last year, members of the Yale Jewish community set up a Shabbat table to raise awareness for the hostages. Last February, Aaron Schorr ’24 also spoke about Goldberg-Polin, who was his childhood friend and neighbor.

At the vigil on Friday, Israel read a quote from Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of Goldberg-Polin from his funeral on Sunday. 

“Throughout the war, Hersh’s Mother told Hersh, ‘Hersh! Stay strong! Survive!’” Israel said. “On Sunday, his mother said ‘Hersh, I need you to do one last thing for us … Now I need you to help us to stay strong. And I need you to help us to survive.’”

Goldberg-Polin’s parents spoke at Republican and Democratic national conventions about their son, urging action to allow his safe return. His death has become a focus of discussions about the hostages and potential paths to the return of the remaining hostages.

During the 2023–24 academic year, the war in Gaza sent ripples through the Yale community as students grappled with grief and dissented against the war since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the following humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

At the end of the event, Rabbi Alex Ozar, co-director of the Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus at Yale, spoke about harnessing grief to make change and concluded with a prayer for the release of the hostages. 

“Jewish grief is not, must not be an escape from the world, an escape into withdrawal and despair and indifference. Jewish grief requires leaning into committing to the world as it actually is, with our eyes wide open, in the hope of making it just a little bit better,” Ozar said. “And so we’ll conclude with a prayer for the release of the hostages, for relief for all of our brothers and sisters.” 

Shabbat lasts from sundown on Friday until an hour after sundown on Saturday.