Tragedy: Coping Through Faith

DZHULETTA AVANESIAN

Campus faith leaders shared advice for coping with tragedy Monday night as part of the GW “Peace Not Prejudice” Week. Chaplain Meraj Allahrakha , Rabbi Yoni Kaiser-Blueth , and Father Greg Shaffer shared  their views in a forum sponsored by the GW Muslim Student Association. The lecture held at Funger Hall was attending by about 25 people of different religions. Members of Muslim Student Association, GW Hillel and Newman Catholic Student Center participated in the panel discussion.

Each leader shared examples from recent tragedies. During the discussion, Father Greg remembered the Newtown, Conn. school shooting of last year.

''We have to cope through tragedy,faith richness and to gather together. We are dealing with mystery,'' said Shaffer.

Kaiser-Blueth talked about his rememberance of Hurricane Katrina and how people dealt with the tragedy that moment, a time during which he was working at New York University.

''Why did God allow the Holocaust to happen? Why would something like this happen?'' he said.

Responding to an audience question on coping with disaster, Allahrakha said, ''It's easy to say when you are not suffering the tragedy.People are not punished collectively. There is a lesson in every tragedy.''

Participants lauded the event for connecting the different religious organizations on campus around the common theme of hope. President of the Muslim Student Association  Aabid Mohiuddin reflected on the event as bringing the campus community together with relatable experiences, particularly difficult events.

Regardless of religion, according to participants, everyone experience grief and tragedy. However, a shared desire for healing lies in faith.

“I believe that when faith shines, people who believe in faith and see the circumstances, come out through that situations stronger than they were before, '' said Mohiuddin.

Each leader stressed the importance of uniting to find comfort and hope through faith.

''Just hope. Each person has a  faith,'' said Shaffer.

White House Correspondent Chuck Todd Visits GW Hillel

By Dzhuletta Avanesian

NBC White House Correspondent Chuck Todd received a GW Hillel t-shirt following his talk Friday night.

Photo Credit: Justin Solar

Chuck Todd, the Chief White House Corresponded for NBC News and the host of The Daily Rundown on MSNBC visited GW Hillel for Shabbat dinner on Friday night .

Todd spoke before a large group of students on his time at GW from 1990-1994, during which he majored in political science and minored in music. 

Todd discussed why he loved GW and one of his favorite aspects of being a student. 
"[It's] an automatic way to get an internship," he said.

Todd started his political work in D.C. while enrolled at GW.  Legendary NBC journalist Tim Russert personally offered him the Political Director position at NBC in 2007 . In 2008, Todd became the White House Correspondent as well as the Contributing Editor to Meet the Press.

Students asked Todd a variety of questions including  the relationship he has with other correspondents covering the White House. 

“We spend a lot of time together and it is a friendly competition," Todd said.  "Some of my closest friends are my competitors." 

On the role of digital journalism, Todd said Twitter's importance should not be minimized as a way to gather information but that the public should realize  journalists reporting breaking news through social media are reporting information "in the raw."  

Todd  went into this point in-depth.  He said journalists giving details of breaking news on Twitter are responding to the public's expectation to learn everything in real-time.  He said the public should understand that journalists are many times still in the news-gathering process  when they report breaking news on social media.  

      

Still, Todd feels the future is brighter for journalism than many others think.  He explained the current media environment is perfect for young entrepreneurial people who could form their own media businesses covering news, for example local news, that many current media companies ignore.  

GW Hillel Hosts Holocaust Remembrance Memorial Service

by Melissa Lee

On Monday the University commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day and the start of Genocide Awareness Week with a memorial service and guest speaker in the Marvin Center.  The event was hosted by GW Hillel and gave guests the opportunity to hear the story of Holocaust survivor Edith Pick Lowy.

Before Lowy told her story, electric votive candles were handed out to each of the guests. Individuals were invited up to the front of the room to participate in candle lighting, including relatives or descendants of Holocaust survivors. A moment of silence was then taken, and the rest of the remembrance proceeded in the form of a traditional Jewish memorial service.

After the service Lowy was introduced and spoke about her experiences as a young child in Poland, a place that saw some of the worst atrocities of the Holocaust. She showed the audience the actual uniform dress that she was forced to wear during the time that she spent in Poland’s labor-concentration camps. Lowy talked about how growing up her rights were slowly stripped away. She and her family were prevented from leaving their community, starting at age ten she had to wear a starred armband identifying her as Jewish, and eventually she couldn’t even attend school.

By the time Lowy was thirteen, her mother had been deported and executed, and she and her father were sent to a Polish labor-concentration camp. Lowy’s little brother, Erik, had also been executed by this time, and Lowy’s father was required to bury him. Although life was terrible in conditions that brought on severe hunger, Lowy and her father supported each other. Lowy talked about her father’s many sacrifices for her—at one time receiving a severe beating just for trying to take a carrot from the kitchen garbage so he could give it to her.

Despite the challenges they faced, Lowy and her father both survived.

Following Lowy’s story, the memorial service closed with prayer.