Some members of the Milwaukee Jewish community are observing the Hebrew month of Elul with particular reflection on what has happened in the Middle East since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israelis and Palestinians continue to die in a war that, for now, seems to have no end.
Elul, which is the last month before the Jewish New Year that begins on Rosh Hashanah, started last week. Elul is viewed as a month of reflection on the previous year.
For Jews, there is grief over the Hamas attacks last Oct. that killed about 1,200 people and led to 250 being taken hostage.
Some of the hostages have since died, including six found dead in Gaza on Sept. 1.
At a Sept. 4 ceremony outside the Jewish Community Center in Whitefish Bay, Jewish Federation Board Chair Judy Coran read descriptions of the six including, “Alexander Lobanov, 32, taken from the Nova (music) festival. Alexander’s youngest child was born five months ago, and he never met his father, and now he never will.”
Other speakers read the names of those believed to be still held hostage, though the Associated Press reports some of those men and women may be dead.
The Whitefish Bay ceremony was also to highlight the sounding of the shofar, a traditional horn typically made from a ram, sounded daily during Elul except on the Sabbath. The sounding is meant, among other things, to summon a feeling of humility before God and a collective voice of pain, hope and unity. The Jewish Federation says this year, the sounding is to show "standing with Israel when words aren’t enough."
Several community members brought their shofar and played the instrument, with a leader calling for the type of blast, including Tekiah and Shevarim-Teruah.
Jewish Federation Vice-president Tziporah Altman-Shafer told WUWM about her shofar.
“My parents bought it in Israel when they went on a Federation trip in the 1970s. My brother blew it for many years, and I guess I inherited it and I blow it every single morning except during the Sabbath during this month, and blow it with my family, so we are really thinking about the year. Indoors, outdoors, usually indoors because I don’t want to wake the neighbors early in the morning," Altman-Shafer says.
Altman-Shafer says the Jewish community has to come together and beseech God that there will be peace.
“And that there is an end to suffering, that Israel is secure. That Jews around the world are secure, that all people stop suffering," she says.
That wish comes as pro-Palestinian groups in Milwaukee and elsewhere point to Gaza Health Ministry numbers saying 41,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, including some Hamas militants. The inability of the U.S. to bring a lasting ceasefire and ongoing U.S. military aid to Israel have become major issues in this year’s presidential campaign.
As to what’s next, Milwaukee Jewish Federation President and CEO Miryam Rosenzweig points to a former Israeli leader who grew up here.
“I’m going to paraphrase Golda Meir, who said to be a realist about Israel, you have to believe in miracles. And I think that’s where we’re at. We know there are 101 hostages. Two of them are babies. We have mothers, we have children. We have Jews, we have Muslims. I mean, it’s all of society. And we hope this war ends quickly, and we hope there’s an opportunity for peace," Rosenzweig says.
Jewish community leaders plan more events closer to Rosh Hashanah, which begins this year on Oct. 2, the attacks anniversary of Oct. 7, and the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur, beginning the evening of Oct. 11.
