10 December 2023 | prestonhollowpeople.com
Community
‘I REALLY WANT TO BELIEVE IN PEACE’
Israel-Hamas war prompts responses in Preston Hollow, Turtle Creek
CLOCKWISE: Community members hosted by the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas gathered at Temple Emanu-El’s Olan Sanctuary in support of Israel after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. SCREENGRAB BY RACHEL SNYDER Demonstrators calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and allowing humanitarian aid into the area rallied on Nov. 5 around Turtle Creek Park. COURTESY DALLAS PALESTINE COALITION
By Rachel Snyder and Maria Lawson People Newspapers
A teacher who lived in a kibbutz near the Gaza Strip before coming to Dallas had just finished celebrating Simchat Torah when fearful messages arrived from loved ones in Israel. “After being in heaven, we discovered that our home is in hell,” Aya said. The Jewish agency for which she is an emissary cited security concerns in asking that neither her full name nor where she’s working be used in this story. “It’s an ongoing grief,” Aya said. “I feel like I’m homeless now.” Though half a world away, the conflict in the Middle East has stirred deep emotions in the Park Cities and Preston Hollow and prompted many to rally for impacted civilians in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. “I was brutally torn away from the
community that I love,” said Aya, who was among the speakers Oct. 10 when the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas hosted a gathering at Temple Emanu-El in support of Israel after Hamas’ attack. “They experienced something that I wasn’t there, and it forever changed their lives.” People in Israel remain fearful after the attack, and there are a lot of unknowns, inc luding when people will be able to return to the kibbutz, she said. “I always believed that people on the other side are like me. That most people want to live together,” Aya added. “I really want to believe in peace. But … “Hamas is not anyone that we can have peace with,” she said. “They proved that they don’t want it, they don’t care about us, and they don’t care about their people.”
“The condition in Gaza is so brutal that they’re really putting 2.4 million people at the brink of starvation.” Faizan Syed
Turtle Creek Park rally “This conflict is not a religious conflict,” Faizan Syed said. “It is really a conflict that
is about humanity.” Syed organized a protest in Turtle Creek Park, where those gathered on Nov. 5 called for a ceasefire and allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza. “A ceasefire must be called because right now, the condition in Gaza is so brutal that they’re really putting 2.4 million people at the brink of starvation,” Syed said. Some demonstrators also carried signs calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel, citing concerns about how the aid would be used. “We need for a ceasefire; we need humanitarian aid to go in, and, ultimately, we need an end to this blockade,” Syed said. “In order to gain peace in that region, we need to end these blockades. We need to end this type of repression.”
Interfaith dialogue Some members of Dallas-based Faith Commons were in Jerusalem on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked. Chief relationship officer Nancy Kasten said the ones there had arrived early for a trip involving people of various faith backgrounds. “The fact,” she said, that “Hamas attacked Israel two days before this trip was supposed to begin was quite traumatic for
us on a professional, … emotional, and personal level.” Kasten said she knew “this was going to make it impossible to continue the work for a very long time and that more traumatization and retraumatization was going to be happening.” Those who had gone early, including president Dr. George Mason, got tickets to return to the States from Jordan a week later. Having stayed in North Texas, Kasten has attended pro-Israeli and Palestinian events to promote more understanding. Hamas doesn’t represent most Palestinians, Kasten said, calling it more productive to embrace opportunities to hear each other’s stories rather than clinging to ideas of how to solve the conflict. AT A G L A N C E A month since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, killing 1,400 people, the death toll from Israel’s response in the Gaza Strip had risen to more than 10,300, according to the territory’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health, CBS reported. The figures provided by the Hamas-run administration in Gaza can’t be independently verified, but U.S. officials say the civilian toll is in the thousands.