Hundreds gather in Milwaukee at Interfaith Vigil for victims of Israeli onslaught

Participants at Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine’s vigil Tuesday placed flowers in water for victims of Israeli military bombing in Gaza and Lebanon.

Hundreds of somber participants filed into the Islamic Society of Milwaukee Community Center Tuesday for a vigil for victims of Israeli military attacks in Gaza and Lebanon. Christians, Jews, Muslims and others greeted each other with handshakes and hugs. 

Some had known each other for decades. Others recently became comrades in protest marches and letter-writing campaigns, calling on the United States government, universities and municipalities to stop the flow of U.S. arms to the Israeli military.

Officially more than 42,000 people have been killed and 97,720 injured by Israel’s onslaught in Gaza (numbers from the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health that are widely considered significantly lower than actual numbers).

In Lebanon, the death toll from Israeli military escalation has risen in the past two weeks to 2,141, with 10,000 injured, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine, a coalition of 86 Wisconsin organizations, calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and an embargo on arms to Israel. It organized Tuesday’s interfaith vigil where Palestinian Americans spoke about the tragedy unfolding in Gaza and Lebanon, and Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders spoke about the need for people of faith to take a stand against an unfolding genocide. 

WCJP presented a video retrospective of the year and participants celebrated the theme of the event, “Killing the flowers will never delay the spring,” by symbolically placing flowers in buckets of water at the front of the auditorium.

Rachel Ida Buff, Ph.D., a history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, co-founder of Jewish Voice for Peace-Milwaukee and WCJP co-chair served as master of ceremonies at the vigil for victims of Israeli military attacks in Gaza and Lebanon.

A year of tragedy and protests

Othman Atta, director of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee and a Palestinian American, began the ceremony with a reflection on the past year. “On a daily basis, we’ve witnessed a genocide taking place before our eyes, funded and armed by our government, using our tax dollars to slaughter tens of thousands of innocent civilians,” he said. “We don’t know how many people have been slaughtered or how many are dying because of starvation. What we do know is that we can see it before our eyes …  that our occupiers want to continue to exterminate, and I use that word intentionally, the people of Gaza. The Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine … came together to fight against this unjust war against the civilian population.” 

“We’ve met a lot of places this year in protest and rage and agony,” added Rachel Ida Buff, Ph.D., a history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, co-founder of Jewish Voice for Peace-Milwaukee and WCJP co-chair. “In our Jewish teachings, we learn every person is a universe. I know we’ve all been thinking about all the universes we’ve lost in Gaza, in the West Bank and in Lebanon—their beautiful promise, their stories, their experiences … we’re here to honor them.” 

Rev. Joseph Ellwanger (center) is known for his civil rights work since the 1960s. His wife Joyce Ellwanger (left) and Rev. Dennis Jacobsen (right) also participated in WCJP’s interfaith vigil.

Absence of media and politicians felt

“As you look around, you may notice some absences, like the media,” Buff said. “We are invisibilized.”

WCJP sent press releases about the vigil to all major media outlets in Greater Milwaukee and beyond, its leaders said. “It doesn’t matter,” said Buff. “There is such a strong Zionist lock on the media in this town. I know that sounds like a horrible, antisemitic thing to say, but it’s true here … there’s no equal coverage.

“We won’t see what was in evidence yesterday at the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s commemoration of Oct. 7. Our politicians are too afraid to support what their constituents very clearly want (a ceasefire in Gaza). 

“But there is one who has been with us all along, who has stood up, who has risked his literal career for us,” she said. “Ryan Clancy, please stand up. We appreciate what you do so very deeply. Thank you.”

Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) frequently speaks out against the Israeli military bombing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. He championed ceasefire resolutions when he served on the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors and in the Wisconsin Assembly.

Speakers call for faith and courage in the face of genocide

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student Ameen Atta, a member of the UWM for Palestine Coalition, recited a passage from the Quran, in English translation and in Arabic, “that discusses God’s commitment to justice and the need for us as human beings to maintain that same commitment.” In part, it said, “Do not let the hatred of a people lead you to injustice. Be just. That is closer to righteousness.”

Samantha Majhor, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Marquette University who specializes in Native American literature, and is Dakota, spoke about the parallels between indigenous history here and the indigenous history of Palestine. “The Dakota people were exiled from our homelands in what is now called the state of Minnesota. Our genocide, stemmed from the war in 1862. The governor at that time … spoke in ways I recognize in the rhetoric we’re seeing today (about Palestinians).”

On Oct. 8, the one-year anniversary of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration of war on Gaza, an interfaith vigil for victims of that war was held at the Islamic Society of Milwaukee Community Center.

Rev. Lisa Bates-Froiland, pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, speaking for Wisconsin Christians for Justice in Palestine, introduced her daughter Maddie, who recently returned to Wisconsin after living and working with the Lutheran Church in the West Bank for three years.

“Every day, when she comes downstairs for coffee in the kitchen, my first question to her is, ‘How are things in Palestine?’ … Too many mornings, I hear things like I did today, ‘They beat an old man to death.’ 

“A man placed himself between Israeli police and protestors to prevent violence. Today the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) struck him twice in the chest and slammed him into a door,” she said, as her voice cracked. “He was 66 years old.”

“I have participated alongside many of you in WCJP. We are multi-faith, multi-age and of multiple political perspectives. And for all those differences, we can all acknowledge and recognize that human atrocity—a genocide—when it is brazenly on display.”

“I attended a rally on the steps of the Federal Courthouse downtown last week, and for the first time, I could see and feel the weariness, the exhaustion, of the activists gathered there. How can it be a year later and babies and children are still murdered and starved and traumatized every passing day?”

She lamented, “It hurts my heart so much to hear Palestinian Christians cry, ‘Where is the global church?’ Yet, I believe Palestine will be free, and those who mourn will be comforted,” she said, followed by a burst of applause from the crowd.

ISM Imam Rami Bleibel, a Palestinian-American with family members in Lebanon, called for blessings of peace upon everyone present and, “more importantly, upon the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, and all those who have been subjected to atrocities by the pariah Israeli Zionist state.

Offering words of comfort to a number of audience members who have lost close relatives and friends in the Middle East this year, he said, “God says, ‘Do not consider those martyred and killed … dead. Rather they are alive and being provided for and blessed by their Lord … God has chosen them to be in a better place … As believers, we are certain of that.”

He asked the audience to remember, when they feel exhausted, the role model of the people of Gaza and now those in Lebanon who have continued to persevere through the worst possible challenges. 

Buff, serving as emcee, noted, “It pains me as a Jewish person to tell you that there is not an ordained rabbi in this town who would be here tonight despite the teachings of our Torah … that every person is a universe, despite the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’

“However, there’s a generation of brilliant, young anti-Zionist rabbis coming up, and they are changing and going to change the world.” With that Buff introduced “the wonderful Sam, a rabbinic student, to speak.”

In Jewish culture, when a person has died, two main phrases are said, Sam explained. From the Torah, “Blessed is the judge of truth,” and from Proverbs, “May their memories be a blessing.” These are difficult to understand in today’s situation, Sam said. How can they be applied to this situation of immeasurable violence, destruction and death? “How can that be part of God’s truth? How can this pain, the memory of all these people who should still be alive, how can that be a blessing? 

“The key is in putting the two phrases together … The memories, the grief, is a bitter feeling. But in our grief, we are moved to act for truth. We are moved to gather as a community, to lean on one another, to organize and persist and pursue justice. And in that we can reflect truth in the world. And in that, there is blessing. 

“We know we need an arms embargo, and we know we need a ceasefire. And we know we need emergency healthcare and other humanitarian care, so many basic food and medical resources to get into Gaza. And we know we need so much more in terms of dismantling these systems of oppression and in terms of reparations … It’s been known for years, decades.

“Blessed is the judge of truth who bends the arc of history toward justice, who hears the cries of Gaza and of the West Bank and Lebanon and beyond, who enables us to remember this day and the whole of the year, and who enables us to listen to Palestinians and act for justice and memories of each martyr. Be a blessing in the form of revolution and justice, and one day peace.”

Angela Lang, founder and executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, highlighted the shared struggle for liberation.

Lang began by saying she is “proud BLOC is a part of the Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine. Our liberation is tied together. It’s a reflection of our shared humanity. We see the absolute cruelty happening in Gaza and we have the hearts to speak out, but some, for whatever reason call it radical, to be against a genocide, one year of this genocide and even longer for those suffering under the occupation. And still people can’t bring themselves to use the word ‘genocide,’ but yet the images and videos that we’ve all seen do not lie.

“After Mike Brown was murdered in Ferguson, I fully understood the connection between the Black and the Palestinian struggles. It was Palestinians who shared how to deal with the effects of tear gas and the military weapons deployed on protestors. And we started to understand as a community that those same Israeli soldiers are the ones that trained local police. We know that our tax dollars should not be used to murder innocent people and we will not stop fighting together as exhausted and tired as we are … We will not stop until Palestine is free.”

Angela Lang, founder and executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities

Voices of Milwaukee’s Palestinian-Americans

David Sahar, a Palestinian-American Christian, shared his experience of immigrating when he was 7 years old to Milwaukee from Jerusalem, where he was born. “I’m ashamed to tell you that in my younger years I lost my Arabic language,” he confessed. “I asked my parents not to speak to me in Arabic.

“Since then, I have read and learned the story of the Palestinians and I’m not standing back any longer. I will acknowledge my Palestinian background to anybody. I will not stop talking about the wrongs that have been done to us and the injustices we have faced over and over again.

“I’m glad to see the general attitude of this country is finally changing … People are realizing the truth of the situation, what we have had to face.”

Dr. Hashim Zaibek, a Palestinian American from Gaza, has been praying for the safety of his sister and her family who were in Gaza until very recently, he said. When asked to speak at the vigil, he decided to bring his 12-year-old niece who has lived for her life in Gaza. As she recounted the first hundred days of Israel’s War on Gaza, he translated from Arabic to English.

She recalled hearing attacks begin on Oct. 8. She asked her mother what was going on. Her mother expected it to be a short-term escalation, “and then we’ll go back to normal,” she told her. Then, on Oct. 13, they were told to leave their home in northern Gaza for the south. They rushed away, not taking much because they expected they would be able to return home in a few days.

Zaibek spoke of his own sadness of learning about the destruction of the big hospital in Gaza City, where he was born. “It was the biggest hospital in Gaza and it was 100% destroyed.”

“My niece was one of the lucky ones who was able to leave,” he said. “As a Palestinian American, I feel sad not to be able to help the ones who are still there. As a pharmacist, I can help my American friends by providing their insulin and blood pressure medications, inhalers, whatever they need. I can’t do anything to help my family and friends in Gaza right now.”

Dr. Hashim Zaibek, a Palestinian-American from Gaza, translated for his niece, who recently arrived from Gaza. She told of her fear as the family fled advancing Israeli airstrikes.

Janan Najeeb, founder of WCJP and the Muslim Women’s Coalition railed against the false narratives in the media and their impacts. “One of the things that we keep hearing from the media over and over is that nothing can justify what happened on Oct. 7, not the Nakba of 1948 that led to a million Palestinians being dispossessed of their land, not to 1967, not 1973, not Sabra and Shatila (the massacre of Palestinians in a camp in Lebanon). Not even the three dozen Palestinians killed by Israelis on Oct. 6. But an entire genocide that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of children, an entire genocide that has just absolutely destroyed Gaza and is destroying Lebanon, all that can be justified because of Oct. 7. The hypocrisy, the sheer hypocrisy!

Janan Najeeb is founder and executive director of the Muslim Women’s Coalition and co-chair of WCJP.

“I want to tell you we cannot stop because we are the ones that are going to make the change … A free Palestine is coming. It’s just simply a matter of time. 

“We’re not tired. We are going to keep at it. And until Palestine is free. Free, free Palestine!”

Following the reading of a poem by a Jewish American about standing for justice for Palestinians, Buff asked the audience to bring flowers to buckets of water lined up across the front of the auditorium, a symbolic rejuvenation of the fight. 

David Sahar, a Palestinian-American Christian, shared his experience of immigrating when he was 7 years old to Milwaukee from Jerusalem, being quiet about his heritage, to his decision to always speak up for Palestinians.

ISM Imam Rami Bleibel, a Palestinian-American with family members in Lebanon, called for blessings of peace upon everyone present.

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student Ameen Atta, a member of the UWM for Palestine Coalition recited a passage from the Quran.