President Rebecca Stoltzfus reappointed for a third term. Learn more
News
Oct 11 2024
As we pass the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, we are witnessing the predictable horror that unfolds when the arithmetic of revenge – “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” – is taken as an exponential license to crush and exterminate.
The Hamas attack killed 1,200 people, and 254 people were taken hostage from Israel. As of today, 70 of the hostages are known or believed to be dead, and 101 are still in captivity. More than 40,000 Gazans have been killed in the retaliatory attacks by Israel, Gaza’s infrastructure has been decimated, and famine is unfolding. The conflict has recently widened geographically to involve Lebanon, and politically and militarily to Hezbollah and Iran.
Last week, Liam Minielly published an opinion piece in The Record, our student newspaper, detailing how arms deals from the United States are enabling the Israeli attacks. Without debating the disparate words being used to describe this war effort, which include terrorism, counter-terrorism, self-defense, and genocide, there is no possibility that the ongoing violence is bringing about a solution.
The question before us, on this anniversary of anguish, is how we might act for peace. I offer you these beginning ideas. Please add to them.
We cannot succumb to the illogical arithmetic of violence and hatred. Even small actions for peace are a source of hope.
Rebecca Stoltzfus, president
Last week Pope Leo XIV issued his first major writing to the global Catholic church, an Apostolic Exhortation – an urgent word of encouragement – on love for the poor, Dilexi Te. As a Mennonite, this theme caught my attention.
We have experienced another hard week of gun violence in America. For me, it has been a week of intense emotions – heavy emotions as well as joy and hope. How do we escape the doom loop? How do we stop partaking when it is dished up to us from all sides of the media and culture that we swim in?
Marvin Blickenstaff was my piano professor at Goshen when I began as a first-year student in the fall of 1979. Seeing him, and listening to his teaching and performance, transported me back to my 17-year-old self – a strange and vivid experience that was both disorienting and orienting.