Another speaker at alumni event says “students should feel ripped off.”
The Editors, Ira Stoll, September 23, 2024
The tone for the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance event that filled Sanders Theater on Sunday afternoon was set early on by an Israeli mother named Avigail Gimpel. She talked about her work as a volunteer with a burial society in Israel that, after the Hamas-led terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, received bodies that were headless and others that were burned alive.
On October 7 she was relieved that her son Gavriel, who had recently finished his mandatory Israeli army service, had his arm in a cast and wouldn’t be called up. Her son sawed the cast off that night and told his mom he was going to fight.
“Choose to be brave,” Gavriel Gimpel, 23, told the Harvard audience.
The event was designed to reinforce the themes of unity, truth, and courage.