Page 92 - October 7 - Teresa Pirola

repeat the sins of the Holocaust, where populations, including too many Christians, were silent bystanders. I thank and pray for those who bear witness to the events of October 7, who are gathering the evidence and working through the appropriate international channels to seek the justice that such crimes demand. In particular, I acknowledge the work of forensic teams in morgues and laboratories whose task is to identify, name and tell the story of each and every victim who perished that day. Despite its devastating detail, it is a sacred work testifying to the dignity of the human person. It is holiness amidst hell.
I Lament the Scourge of War and Its Deathly Toll
The lives of Palestinians are no less sacred, and the world looks on in horror at the devastating impact of the war in Gaza. Each person killed is not a statistic of war but a name, a face, a human being with a personal story. I acknowledge that Israeli military strategy does not seek the deaths of innocent Palestinians, and that a country has the right to defend itself against an enemy committed to its destruction. Still, the magnitude of the war-induced loss of life in Gaza, which mirrors the loss of innocent lives in other regional and global conflicts in living memory, saddens and troubles us.
My views on the futility of all war are well known and I won’t repeat them here. We can engage in discussion another time, in a different forum. In this letter, I come to you simply as a brother. I wish to speak, from my heart to yours, in an attempt to understand this moment as experienced by Israelis, by Jews, and especially by Jewish people in Israel.
I Treasure Kishreinu—the Bond We Share
I write, conscious of the bond we share: Kishreinu, as
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