Members of the University community reacted in shock and horror to Saturday's assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish Israeli and convened for a candlelight vigil and songs of peace Sunday night on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
More than 200 members from the Durham and Chapel Hill Jewish communities mourned Rabin's passing, according to students and faculty who attended.
"The entire Jewish community feels a definite need to respond," said Frances Fischer, director of University Hillel, who attended the vigil. "It will take a long time for people to come to grips with this."
Judaic studies professor Eric Meyers, who visits Israel often for his research, expressed his sense of loss as well. "I'm grieving with the rest of the international community and friends in Israel for a fallen soldier," Meyers said. "I haven't felt this way since JFK was assassinated."
Trinity junior Jeff Epstein, who is currently studying at Tel Aviv University in Israel, said in an e-mail message to The Chronicle from Israel that he felt "an overwhelming sadness, but also a helplessness."
"I felt as if I should be doing something, but all I could do was sit around and listen to a radio broadcast in a foreign language," he said. Commenting on the atmosphere of the crowd outside Rabin's house, which is close to the campus, Epstein said, "Being there, with Israelis, in Israel, living the history that was happening in front of my eyes, added to the trauma of the situation. But the confusion of where to go, who to turn to, for myself and for Israel, was overwhelming."
"I finally made it home for sleep, with the tears still welled up in my eyes, and woke up from a night where nightmare and visions of the situation filled my head, to attend a memorial service on campus," Epstein said.
Trinity junior Rachel Duval, who is also studying at Tel Aviv University, expressed similar sadness. "There is really no place I would rather be right now," she said in an e-mail from Israel.
For Jews here in Durham who attended the vigil and sang songs, many expressed the need to mourn with their relatives in Israel. "I'm envious of [the Israelis'] position because I feel somewhat removed," said Trinity senior Josh Septimus, president of Duke Friends of Israel. "I feel like a distant relative has passed away, and I can't be with the rest of my relatives to mourn his passing [and] express that mourning to the fullest," he said.
Septimus said he was happy that members from the Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities attended Sunday night's vigil and unilaterally condemned the assassination. "This has proved that Jewish extremism is just as terrifying as Arab extremism, and that the world in general needs to fight against extremism in all its forms."
Nevertheless, the fact that the assassin was Jewish has forced the Jewish community to confront their divisiveness over the future of Israel's occupied territories and its strategy for pursuing peace with its Arab neighbors (see related story, page 1).
"For 2,000 years, there has been an understanding that Jews don't kill other Jews," said Trinity senior Lisa Wesely, president of Duke Hillel.
To express unity, Duke Friends of Israel and Hillel plan to hold a day-long vigil today from 10 a.m. to about 4:30 p.m. on the Bryan Center walkway and a memorial service on the Chapel steps at 5 p.m.
The University chapter of Hillel, along with Jewish groups at other universities, has been invited to sign a book of condolences at the Israeli consulate in Atlanta from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and Tuesday.
At Sunday's memorial service on the Tel Aviv University campus, Epstein said he felt part of the experience, despite his lack of fluency in Hebrew. "As I sat in the sunlight and the heat (up to near 80 degrees), it wasn't important that I didn't understand much of what was being said, because I did understand it, I felt the feelings of what was being said, the feelings of the Israelis, the sorrow as we sang hatikvah."
Brian Harris contributed to this story.
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