SPOKANE, Wash. —
Rabbi Dr. Elizabeth Goldstein said every Jewish person has a connection Israel, even those who have never been.
“We all have our own experiences of how Israel plays a part in our sort of spiritual and religious identity,” Goldstein shared.
That’s what makes the Hamas attack on Israel and Jewish people so personal.
"People have family and boyfriends and like our students, even though we're out in Spokane, we all have connections to Israel like I have good friends who actually live in the south," Goldstein said.
Goldstein is both an associate professor at Gonzaga University and Jewish Chaplain.
She said in her latter role, she serves the small, Jewish student and faculty population.
"We have 60 students out of like 4,500," Goldstein said. "We have at least nine professors."
So when Israel went under attack, she had to process her own emotions, alongside her Jewish community.
"As a rabbi today, I just need to be like a clergy person for my people and today, my people are in deep, deep mourning," Goldstein said.
She said the unnecessary terror leads to more pain than progress.
“None of this is going to bring anybody closer to a peace, it's only going to just create more war and war, sadness," Goldstein said. "And there's just going to be a lot of loss of Jewish and Arab life because of this. It's just, it's just tragic.”
Goldstein said the middle east isn't a stranger to conflict, but the level of destruction in the most recent Hamas attack is on another, deadly level.
"900 Israeli dead," Goldstein said. "Numbers are growing and growing of Palestinians who are dying. It's a day is a day of grief."
She clarified Hamas and Palestinians cannot be assumed to share the same ideals.
"There's different ways of talking about Palestinians," Goldstein said. "Some will say the word Palestine and they mean all of where Israel is today. And that's how Hamas thinks about it. So they just think that like the homeland should be theirs. And so they can just do whatever they want.”
She said, despite all, she hopes injustice won’t prevail.
With all the sadness she feels, she said she also feels resilient and strong.
“Nobody's walking away from Israel," Goldstein started. "I think some of the goal's like to say, it's not sustainable for Jews to be in Israel, and I think that, there's going to be Jews in Israel. I think it's not gonna deter that. And so, if that's the point lit's not gonna work. So I guess I feel sad but like, also resilient and strong.”
She said she will continue to pray for the families processing loss and for fewer people to die as a result of the violence.
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