Hannah Terzi doesn’t feel safe as a Jewish Gator.
In the wake of the Pittsburgh shooting, she remembered white nationalist Richard Spencer’s visit and the neo-Nazi on Turlington Plaza last year, both things that unsettled the 20-year-old UF psychology junior.
That’s why security has always been a necessity, she said.
“Even though I’m in Florida, I feel like I’m connected to it,” Terzi said. “It’s so upsetting because anti-Semitism hasn’t gone anywhere.”
Her phone was flooded with notifications about the shooting the day after she went to service.
Local Jewish groups have organized vigils and fundraisers to pay tribute after a gunman killed 11 people and injured six at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh Saturday morning.
Most victims of the shooting were older, with the eldest being 97. Terzi thought of her grandparents and called them. They didn’t talk about the shooting — she just wanted to know they were OK.
“The Jewish community is so close, so it affects everyone,” Terzi said. “It’s heartbreaking because America is supposed to be this place of religious freedom.”
Lubavitch Chabad Jewish Center, the UF Jewish Student Union and UF Hillel are hosting a Stand Together Against Hate solidarity vigil 12:30 p.m. today on Turlington Plaza.
Colin Silverman, the president of the UF Jewish Student Union, offered support to students and shared a national campaign to raise money for the Tree of Life Congregation. The campaign has raised more than $520,000 as of Sunday night. Silverman said one UF student had personal ties to the congregation.
The 22-year-old UF accounting junior teaches Jewish culture to children from kindergarten to seventh grade. Police were present at his synagogue Sunday morning, he said. Teachers were taught active shooter drills.
“It’s one of those things — it’s the reality of the world that we live in,” Silverman said.
UF is home to one of the largest populations of Jewish undergraduates in the United States. Eighteen percent of its undergraduate population is Jewish, according to Hillel International.
The group will continue its programming and provide a safe haven for the Jewish community on campus, Silverman said.
“It’s time to make changes in our country,” Silverman said. “We need to see real change, and it all starts with all types of people coming together and really just loving each other as neighbors.”
Other synagogues and Jewish community leaders have also taken precautions to increase security in places of worship. Rabbi Berl Goldman, the director of chabad, said the Jewish center has been working with local and state police to work on security measures since Saturday.
“Every single Jew around the world is not only grieving but are shocked, upset and outraged by this senseless hatred and act of terrorism against the Jewish community,” he said.
Goldman called for a display of goodness, kindness and education to dispel hate.
“Somebody doesn’t wake up in the morning with hate or anti-Semitism or evil. This is taught, nurtured,” Goldman said.
Members of BBYO, a Jewish youth group, have banded together to show their support in the Gainesville community.
Noga Brauner, a 15-year-old Eastside High School freshman and leader of the local chapter, said the organization cultivates positive change and community. High school students are wearing blue on Monday in honor of the victims.
After the shooting, she reached out to her classmates and friends in the Jewish community to show solidarity together.
“It’s just a small thing to show that we are reacting,” Brauner said. “I think it’s important that even though we are teenagers, we still have power to make change.”
Contact Alyssa Ramos at aramos@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @LysKRamos
In this Oct. 27, 2018 photo, Rabbi Eli Wilansky lights a candle after a mass shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood. Robert Bowers, the suspect in Saturday's mass shooting, expressed hatred of Jews during the rampage and told officers afterward that Jews were committing genocide and he wanted them all to die, according to charging documents made public Sunday. (Steph Chambers/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)
