With the fourth highest Jewish population of any state in the country and a significant Palestinian community as well, New Jersey has been deeply affected by Saturday’s unprecedented attack against Israel by the terrorist group Hamas, and the subsequent retaliatory shellings ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As of Friday morning, Israel reported that 1,300 Israelis had been killed in Hamas’ attack, and the Palestian Ministry of Health reported that more than 1,400 Palestinians had been killed (via NBC News). Estimates of those killed or captured include more than 20 Americans.
West Orange resident Josie Harris, whose sister and brother live in Israel with their families, said four of her nephews and two in-laws have been called into service; one niece is working 16-hour shifts at Hadassah Hospital and another is putting in long hours as a social worker. “Everyone is getting called up; there is a lot of need,” she says. “School is canceled. It’s a nightmare.”
On Wednesday, Governor Phil Murphy confirmed the death of Paramus native Itay Glisko, 20, who was serving near the Gaza border in the Israel Defense Forces at the time of the attack. On Thursday, Murphy confirmed the death of 20-year-old Hopewell native Lior Abramov, who had moved to Israel to become a DJ.
A 2020 Tenafly High School graduate, Edan Alexander, also serving in the Israeli military near Gaza, is missing and feared killed or captured, the governor said at a vigil in Hoboken on Tuesday evening.
Other New Jersey residents have heartbreakingly reported missing Jewish family members who had been attending a music festival near Gaza. And amid most commercial airlines canceling flights out of Israel, some New Jersey families who were there over the religious holiday Simchat Torah.
“We’re expecting planeloads of people that will not be able to get out via United and via Delta. And they’re going to have to get rebooked next week, whether it be Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, either trekking through Europe like I just did or hoping for more flights to be added,” said Teaneck Councilman Mark Schwartz.
Schwartz was in Israel when Hamas attacked Israel on Saturday, and luckily was able to get on a flight to Bulgaria on El Al, the Israeli airline, before flying home to New Jersey.
Senator Corey Booker, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was in Tel Aviv for a summit, but was able to shelter in place and then return safely to the United States a few days later, according to his office.
Some New Jersey town halls, such as Maplewood, are lighted blue, the color of the Israeli flag, and numerous vigils across the state have taken place or are planned to show support for Israel and the Jewish community.
Attorney General Matt Platkin addressed a crowd of more than 3,000 people who gathered at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly on Tuesday. A second event that day was hosted by Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills with the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ and was attended by 1,000 people, including Reps. Mikie Sherrill and Tom Kean Jr. A third event took place at Pier A in Hoboken.
Multiple members of New Jersey’s Palestinian community are also reporting that their family members have been killed in the shelling of Gaza, according to the Palestinian American Community Center in Clifton. The siege of the city of 2.1 million people, which has had no water, food or electricity for days, is causing a humanitarian crisis for a territory where over half the population lives beneath the poverty line. There are no beds for the wounded, and the International Committee of the Red Cross warns that “without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues.”
On Friday, some Palestinians fled northern Gaza after Israeli military told them to evacuate, according to the Associated Press.
On Thursday, before at a rally at Bnai Keshet in Montclair, Rabbi Elliott Tepperman wrote in an email, “This is one of the darkest moments the Jewish people have faced in our lifetime,” and condemned the violence, especially against civilians.
He added that Judaism affirms the value of every human life, and said that everyone in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank deserves to live in safety, freedom and peace.
“Our fate as American Jews is tied to the fate of Israeli Jews,” he wrote. “And the fate of Israelis and Palestinians are likewise inextricably intertwined.”