Pro-Palestinian rally and vigil for Israeli hostages killed held separately in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A pro-Palestinian rally and a vigil for Israeli hostages killed in Gaza were held a couple of miles from each other in Pittsburgh on Tuesday. 

Student groups demonstrating near the University of Pittsburgh’s campus showed their support for people in Gaza and ending the war between Israel and Hamas. And a couple of hours later, a vigil at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill paid tribute to six people who were kidnapped, held hostage and then killed.

Just down the street from one another stood gatherings representing both sides of the Israel-Hamas war. 

There was a pro-Palestinian group of Pitt students at Schenley Plaza. 

“It’s not just grief,” Karim Safieddine, a third-year PhD student at Pitt, said. “To people there, this is an end-of-their-world scenario.”

There was a pro-Israel group in Squirrel Hill. 

“We stand here together with our non-Jewish allies and friends to unite in grief, in sorrow and in mourning,” said Julie Paris, the Mid-Atlantic regional director of StandWithUs.

Both groups are grieving. 

“Every single person in Gaza awaits death,” Safieddine said. 

“I’m feeling absolutely heartbroken that there is still a genocide after almost a year,” Pitt senior Cameryn Gray said. “I think it’s absolutely shameful.”

Schenley Park held host to chants, while the Jewish Community Center played host to songs focusing on the deaths of the six Hamas-held hostages found over the weekend. 

“We come together tonight to feel each other’s pain,” Congregation Poale Zedeck Rabbi Daniel Yalkut said.

The faces of the hostages flashed across the screen as a community looked on. The names of those who were lost were read. Once face, Hersh Goldberg Polin, was familiar to Yalkut. 

“He just came from a family of such incredible warmth and faith and good humor,” he said.

Sen. John Fetterman told KDKA-TV why he attended.

“Those six innocent civilians were executed on Oct. 7 and we’re now coming upon the first anniversary,” Fetterman, a Democrat, said. 

The vigil and rally came days after two Jewish students were attacked on Pitt’s campus

“It is that responsibility that makes us release a statement condemning the vicious attack on Jewish students in the Cathedral of Learning,” Safieddine said.

He says they must reject antisemitism in their name

“Grief, death and violence will proceed and will continue to dominate everything that’s happening as long as these structures prevail,” Safieddine said.

There was a small group of pro-Israel protesters at the rally for Gaza, which agitated the pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Despite some tension there, everything remained peaceful