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Oregon’s top elected officials expressed anguish and solidarity with Israel last night at Portland’s Congregation Neveh Shalom, two days after Hamas gunmen invaded Israeli border towns in a deadly assault that has renewed war in the Middle East.
U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), U.S. Reps. Suzanne Bonamici and Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler joined rabbis and Pastor J.W. Matt Hennessee at the temple in the Southwest Portland hills.
Wyden called Hamas “genocidal” on Monday night, and pledged “a grim resolve…to help Israel defend itself.” Merkley, too, denounced the attacks in strong terms. “They were breathtaking in their brazenness and their brutality, stunning in their cowardice and their cruelty, and their acts underscore the dangers facing not just the Israeli people, but Jewish people around [the world], including here in the United States of America,” Merkley said. “There is no place for hatred, for violence, for antisemitism, not in Oregon, and not in Israel.”
Marc Blattner, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, which organized Monday night’s service, read supportive remarks from Gov. Tina Kotek.
Blattner told attendees that a former student of the Portland Jewish Academy was kidnapped from the Supernova Sukkot Gathering in Re’im. The student’s identity was not revealed Monday night, but Blattner says they are presumed dead.
“We are suffering from trauma, grief, fear and anger,” Blattner said. “Many of the people here and watching at home have been personally impacted and intimately touched by these terrorist attacks.”
A day earlier, socialist activists from seven groups—organized by the Portland branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation—rallied Sunday afternoon to support Palestine near the east Burnside bridgehead, marching up Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the Blumenauer Pedestrian Bridge to wave signs over Interstate 84.
“The International Women’s Alliance stands in unconditional support of the Palestinian resistance in whatever form it takes,” said Katie Comfort, the International Women’s Alliance’s U.S. coordinator, on Sunday. “This action is not unprovoked. This is an act of liberation and revolution.”
Over the weekend, Hamas-led militant groups had breached Israeli defense systems from within Gaza, firing more than 5,000 rockets and attacking military and civilian targets in nearly a dozen Israeli communities, including kidnapping people from a music festival. Israel activated the Iron Dome in retaliation.
The attacks came at the end of the Jewish holiday Sukkot, and the beginning of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War’s 50th anniversary. In total, more than 1,500 people have been killed, and another 6,000 were injured. Hamas has taken more than 150 hostages, and is threatening to execute them if Israeli forces fire more airstrikes into Gaza.
An elderly Jewish woman who attended Congregation Neveh Shalom last night but did not wish to be named told WW that while she appreciated the outpouring of support she witnessed from political leaders, she had no faith that lasting change would result from it.
“Biden will call for a cease-fire within a week, and these platitudes will mean nothing,” she said. “I’m old. I’ve seen it all.”
