Rabbi Howard Morrison

On Saturday night November 4, 1995 at a peace rally in Tel Aviv,  Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated by a fellow Jew. Any adult Jew knows where he/she was at the time. I was walking to my Long Island shul for Shabbat Mincha. When Israel was striving for a genuine peace with her neighbors, internal crisis led to the first murder of a Jew in office by a fellow Jew since Biblical times.

Now, twenty-eight years later,  Israel and the Jewish people are under attack by Hamas, its sympathizers, and Jew-haters around the world. This tragic time, however, the Jewish people are united as one body with one heart. Synagogues all over the world recite a prayer for Israel, the IDF,  and the hostages. Many synagogues are adding reflective psalms, Am Yisrael Chai, Ha' Tikvah, and more.

In many cultures, it is said that a stick alone is breakable, but a bundle of sticks is unbreakable. 

Amidst the horror, loss of life, injuries, trauma and false propaganda, we the Jewish people are united as never before.

We will not break. We may bend, but we will stand strong and proud as befits the Jewish people over four thousand years.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Howard Morrison