Brown U students mark Hanukkah in shadow of campus shooting, terror in Sydney |
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (JTA) — Dozens of Brown University students shielded their candles at a menorah lighting that doubled as a vigil on Sunday night as Hanukkah arrived under a sheet of snow and a thick blanket of trauma, following a mass shooting in an economics class.
On Saturday, a gunman opened fire on a room where students had gathered to review for their final exam in Principles of Economics, Brown’s most popular class and one that is dominated by freshmen. He killed two students and injured nine others at the Barus and Holley Building, home to the School of Engineering and the Physics Department, in Providence, Rhode Island.
The school went into lockdown for 12 hours and subsequently canceled all academic exercises for the rest of the semester. On Sunday night, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said a police investigation was ongoing and a person of interest detained earlier in the day was being released.
Yael Ranel Filus, a sophomore engineering student from Tel Aviv, who goes to Barus and Holley daily, was at a nearby building when shots rang out. She said she had been in touch with fellow Israeli students, who, like her, were in disbelief.
“We were talking in the group channel, like, ‘Oh, we thought we left that at home. We thought we left those tragedies at home,’” Filus said. “I don’t think any of us thought we would encounter something like this here.”
Another tragedy loomed over the menorah lighting led by two rabbis, Josh Bolton and Mendel Laufer, the respective heads of Brown’s Hillel and Chabad, located on adjacent blocks at the heart of the school’s urban campus. Across the world on Sunday, at least 15 people were killed, and dozens were injured in a terror attack on Jews who gathered to celebrate Hanukkah in Sydney, Australia.
Bolton said both shootings were on his mind during a speech to the crowd of students, professors, and Hillel........