Editor:
I drove into the Vancouver Oct. 10 to join the vigil for murdered and kidnapped Israelis.
The event was intense and filled with grief, including for a young local man, Ben Mizrachi, who was murdered by terrorists along with 260 others while attending a concert for peace. The images coming out from this unprecedented orgy of terrorism are beyond imagination.
From conversations, I know that many of my Jewish friends are feeling abandoned in their grief. Not only has there been equivocation – blaming the victims, essentially – there have even been organized events in Canada celebrating these acts of barbarism. Yet the silence from the mass of Canadians has been deafening.
At the vigil, I was heartened to run into Delta Coun. Dylan Kruger. He was (I checked with organizers) the only municipal official from outside the City of Vancouver in attendance that night.
Small gestures of solidarity and shared anguish, like Dylan’s and like the people who took time to wave the Israeli flag from the Ladner overpass recently, make a huge difference as a community struggles with the horrors of what has happened to their sisters and brothers in Israel.
Thank you, Dylan, for being there. And, everyone, please check on your Jewish friends. They are grieving.
Pat Johnson
