PHOTO: Sen. Ron Wyden addresses the Greater Portland Jewish Community Gathering in Solidarity with Israel Monday, Oct. 9 at Congregation Neveh Shalom. Sen. Jeff Merkley and Reps. Suzanne Bonamici and Earl Blumenauer also spoke at Monday's event. (Rockne Roll/The Jewish Review)

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
“We’ve gathered tonight,” Sen. Jeff Merkley said, “Jews and Gentiles, to say no to terrorism and say yes to solidarity with Israel.” 
The Senator’s words from the bimah of Congregation Neveh Shalom’s main sanctuary to the standing-room-only crowd assembled within, the hundreds in an overflow room at the synagogue and the thousands watching online were a brief summation of the multitude of feelings expressed at the Greater Portland Jewish Community Gathering in Solidarity with Israel Monday, Oct. 9. 
Co-Sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, Neveh Shalom, and 32 other local Jewish organizations, the event brought over 1,200 people together – with heightened security – to mourn, comfort one another and proudly declare, as Oregon Board of Rabbis Chair Rabbi Jonathan Seidel led the assembly in singing, “Am Yisrael Chai” – the people of Israel live.
“President Truman sent a message 75 years ago to the entire world when he recognized the State of Israel only 11 minutes into its existence,” Sen. Ron Wyden recalled. “For my colleagues 3,000 miles from here in Washington, D.C. but more especially for the Israelis fighting for their lives tonight, 7,000 miles from here, let us commit loudly to an unshakeable commitment our country made during Israel’s first hours of life. The United States will always stand with Israel.”
The gathering was a community response to the Hamas attacks on Israel on Saturday, including a barrage of rockets and the infiltration of thousands of terrorist gunman into cities, villages and kibbutzim throughout southern Israel on a Shabbat that also marked the observance of Simchat Torah and was just a day after the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The death toll is still being tabulated as of press time, but several news outlets have confirmed that over 150 hostages were kidnapped by Hamas and are now being held in Gaza. Reports of sexual assaults and the intentional killing and mutilation of children by Hamas terrorists have also been confirmed. 
“I stood in this very space as we completed the yearly reading of our sacred Torah,” Neveh Shalom Associate Rabbi Eve Posen explained. “The holiday of Simchat Torah is usually one of joyous celebration as we dance together and hug our Torah scrolls. Instead, we found ourselves hugging the Torah but more one another, tight, hoping for comfort, longing for answers and praying that our physical stronghold of the Torah’s values would somehow become a balm for our broken hearts.”
“Who knew at the conclusion of our holiday of joy, I’d be reading to you from the Book of Lamentations?” Congregation Kesser Israel Rabbi Sholom Skolnik said. 
As he read out the words attributed to the prophet Jeramiah, “my eyes drip with tears,” so, too, did the Rabbi’s. 
“Since Shabbat morning,” Rabbi Skolnik continued, “I’ve been struggling to put together words. Ultimately, words have eluded me, eloquence has failed me. I have nothing to share with you, other than a broken heart.”
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Elias Stahl, an Israeli living in the Portland area, filled in some of the details of Saturday. 
“In an instant, the worst nightmares of our country stabbed into our lives,” he said. “They were not the soldiers of Syria or Egypt. They were bloodhounds of Hamas. Drilled not to take land, but to take lives to exterminate us. For the first time since the Nazis, the first time in many of our lives, we are seeing a war of extermination against Jews.”
Stahl described the family of a friend of his, living in Southern Israel, who barricaded themselves in their safe room as Hamas roamed the streets. As one of their sons held the door closed, a gunman forced his way in, shot the son holding the door, and forced the rest of the family out onto the street, where they were placed on motorcycles to be taken to Gaza. The mother, holding her infant daughter, jumped off the back of the moving bike and ran miles through the desert to safety, while the whereabouts of the seven-year-old son on the other bike, and her husband, are unknown. 
“We wake up to entire families taken, children clinging to their mother’s bodies in their kitchens,” Stahl continued. “Not one person in Israel feels safe today.”
Multiple speakers made a point to clearly label the acts of Hamas as beyond any notion of legitimacy.
Unlike the Yom Kippur War, where there were many, many deaths, there were no civilian deaths then. This is unprecedented. Civilians, including women, children, a grandmother, captured,” Rep. Suzanne Bonamici said. “This is terrorism, and these are war crimes.”
“We’ve all seen the unimaginable accounts of Hamas terrorists acting on the orders of their genocidal leadership, targeting civilian women and children for kidnapping, rape, and murder,” Sen. Wyden said. “Sadly, non-combatants die in war. But only the most monstrous criminals of history make it their goal to brutalize. Now, tragically, we are facing those criminals yet again.”
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There was sadness, grief, and anger on display. There were prayers for the victims, for the people of Israel, for the hostages, and for the Israeli Defense Forces, along with a moment of silence. But there was also a sense of unity, and even room for a little levity.
“We saw the slide a little while ago of all of the different organizations that are here,” Congregation Beth Israel Rabbi Michael Cahana noted. “Unprecedented, amazing that Jews can agree about anything.”
“But today,” he continued, “we agree all of those institutions, all of those synagogues, all of those organizations, that alphabet soup of Jewish life here in Portland, Oregon, we stand with Israel.”
“This is no time for us to equivocate, we must be together, we must stand together, we must protest together, because our voice is strong,” Pastor J.W. Matt Hennessee of Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church in Portland said. Pastor Hennessee is a leader in interfaith work in Portland and expressed solidarity on behalf of Portland’s Black community. 
“Let me also tell you that, as hard as this is and as difficult as it is to even walk in this room tonight, to be a part of this program tonight, I’m just grateful that we’re here, and I’m grateful you’re here and I’m grateful those are watching are here because this is our time.”
The unity of purpose on display was not lost on Rep. Earl Blumenauer. 
“I only wish that the spirit that I sense here tonight would be a little more in evidence in the House of Representatives,” he said.
The evening concluded with a rendition of HaTikvah, the Israeli national anthem lead by Neveh Shalom Cantor Eyal Bitton.
“Tikvah means hope,” he said. “We need hope now more than ever. We need your voice.”