Jews in communities far from Israel, including South Florida, gathered at synagogues this weekend for Shabbat services held amid the ongoing war ignited by Hamas militants' attack on Israel a week earlier.
Rabbis led prayers of peace and shared grief with their congregations. At many synagogues security was tight.
In Miami Beach, as his parents hunkered down in their safe room in northern Israel, Juval Porat tried to remain focused on preparing a mix of joyful and comforting hymns for the Shabbat services at his synagogue.
“For the life of me, I’m not going to cry,” the cantor said before Friday evening services in Temple Beth Sholom. “I need to be strong, so that other people can cry.”
Tears did flow as Porat and the rabbis led 300 congregants in praying for peace, for safety for the people of Israel and the soldiers defending it, and especially for the hostages.
“It’s the first time I cried,” said Michael Conway, who wore a white kippah decorated with blue doves as symbols of peace.
The prayers in Hebrew and English were “a chance to release the pent-up emotion of the week, and to be with a lot of people who knew how I feel,” he added.
In her sermon, Senior Rabbi Gayle Pomerantz named those emotions — fear, anger, shock that Israel and the Jewish people are facing “an existential moment.”
“We want to pummel Hamas with our own hands,” she told the congregation sitting in silence after she shared testimonials from survivors of a now-devastated kibbutz where, as a student, she had celebrated many Shabbats.
“But hate will never repair what is broken,” she said, urging the faithful instead to show solidarity and to support Israel’s relief efforts.
Rabbi Robert Davis struck the same note as he lit a candle to commemorate the hostages and those killed by Hamas — “the infants and children and teens, the soldiers, the concert-goers, and people waiting for the bus.”
“There aren’t enough candles,” Davis said. “Let us be the lights.”
