How do you mourn the deaths of over 25,000 people? How do you help a community mourn those deaths?

These are the questions that the Loyola chapter of Students for a Democratic Society and the Muslim Student Association are attempting to address through organizational efforts, including an interfaith vigil for Palestine on Jan. 29.

Loyola SDS president Carson Cruse said, “We wanted to have something on campus because there’s a lot of Palestinian students here, a lot of Arab students, Muslim students that don’t feel safe at outside events.”

Cruse said the goal of the vigil is to provide a safe and educational space for the Loyola community to come together and grieve the immense loss of life in Palestine.

“What are we supposed to do? We just go about our lives, and we can’t any longer. It’s too much,” Cruse said. “It’s always on my phone, like children dying, women, families being bombed, and journalists being killed.”

The vigil featured speakers from the Loyola and New Orleans community. The speakers represented members of Christian, Islamic, and Jewish faiths, who offered words of comfort, prayer, poetry, anger, and resilience in English, Arabic, and Hebrew.

Students, staff, and community members also took to the stage to share their experiences and feelings about Palestine with their peers in the Peace Quad.

A Palestinian member of the Masjid Omar mosque Hakm Murad said, “We want everyone to understand that we deserve humanity. We deserve a place to call home.”