This past week in New Haven, CT, people gathered in vigil, over two dozen in front of the district office of Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro on one day, and then two days later, again over two dozen people turned out to vigil in front of a local library where DeLauro was attending an event. The purpose? To bear public witness to the suffering and to humanize the loss by reading aloud the names of those who have died in the horrific violence in Gaza.

We read from two lists: one from Haartz here with the names of Israeli Jews and foreign nationals killed in the October 7^th assault and the second, a Mondoweiss posting here from the State of Palestine Ministry of Health of the Palestinians killed since October 7th. We knew the lists were incomplete. The Ministry of Health list, organized by family surname from oldest to youngest, recorded the deaths only through October 26^th. The Haartz list included 1,145 names of the widely reported accounts of 1,400. Even so, in the more than two hours of reading names during these two vigils, participants were able to get through a total of only about 148 of the names from the October 7^th  list and only 898 of the 6,747 Palestinian names.  Names were read, alternating in about a 1:6 ratio, to recognize the disproportion in numbers. After every cluster of names, a Tibetan singing bowl was rung.

Participants reflected a diversity of race, ethnicity, and religion, ranging in age from a 9o year old Jewish woman to an infant held tightly as her mother teared up, reading the names of Palestinian children. It was a time of coming together and supporting one another in our deep grieving and of issuing impassioned calls to stop the killing and to cease fire immediately. We turned to poets to help us express our “sighs too deep for words,” reading Zeina Azzam’s poem “Write My Name," as we began and ending with Rabbi Irwin Keller’s poem, "Taking Sides."

Vigils such as this one in New Haven are being organized around the country. Logistically, they are easy to organize and to replicate. They matter, even if just two or three people show up. They provide a much needed way to bear witness to unconscionable and unfathomable suffering, to insist on humanizing and honoring by name those that have been killed, and to demand an immediate ceasefire.