A few days before Sukkot, the world witnessed the unbearably tragic image of 19-year-old Sha’ban al-Dalou, a software engineering student burning to death after Israel bombed Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in Gaza. In the horrifying video footage, Sha’aban’s was lying on a hospital gurney, screaming as the flames engulfed him and onlookers screamed for help. His mother and younger brother also died in that fire. It was recently reported that his younger sister Farah has succumbed to her burns as well. May their memories be for a blessing.

Before his death, Sha’aban had recorded videos asking for help to move his family to safety in Egypt. In one video, he described his and his families life attempting to survive amidst the genocide: “I’m taking care of my family, as I’m the oldest,” adding that his parents, two sisters and two brothers were displaced five times before finding refuge on the hospital’s grounds. “The only thing between us and the freezing temperatures is this tent that we constructed by ourselves.”

Like so many, I was shattered after learning of Sha’aban’s life and death. I was particularly devastated to learn that he burned to death while he was recovering from a previous attack and was receiving medical treatment in a shelter he had constructed to protect his family.

As it would turn out, all of this transpired as the Jewish community was preparing for the Sukkot holiday, in which we build fragile, makeshift shelters to dwell and eat in during our week-long festival. Like all of the Jewish festivals, Sukkot has now taken on an entirely new and immediate meaning after witnessing more than a year of Palestinians being driven from their homes, forced to life in flimsy makeshift tent shelters, which all too often have served as the place of their final, terrifying moments on earth.

As has been the case with other Jewish holidays this past year, many of us were unable to treat the Sukkot festival as “business as usual.” Rather, this holiday which sanctifies the literal creation of shelter, has provided us a ritual means to express our sacred solidarity with the Palestinian people during a time of genocide. And not unsurprisingly, college students across the country have once again led the way for us. According to Nate Cohn, the National Campus Organizer for Jewish Voice for Peace, almost 30 “solidarity sukkot” have been built – or are planning to be built – on campuses around the US. At least four that we know of have already been destroyed by police forces.

In the wake of the student Palestine solidarity encampment movement last spring, college administrations have spent the summer devising ways to crack down on its resurgence by developing draconian new rules designed to severely restrict freedom of assembly and speech. Of course, when it comes to Jewish students constructing sukkot on their campuses, it adds in the critical issue of freedom of religious expression. Moving, dismantling or destroying sukkot is, quite simply, act of religious desecration.

At Northwestern University, in my hometown of Evanston, the campus chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace attempted in vain to receive a permit to build a sukkah on their campus. On the eve of Sukkot last Wednesday evening, they put up a solidarity sukkah in Deering Meadow, a large open grassy area on campus (see above) – and within hours it was destroyed by campus police. With no other options, they decided to rebuild their sukkah last Friday at The Rock, a centrally located and historically protected space of expression which is the only area on campus where tents are techincally permitted.

Leaders of JVP NU reached out to my congregation, Tzedek Chicago, to support and protect their rebuilding, which took place on the eve of Shabbat. And so when the time came, Tzedek cantorial soloist Adam Gottllieb and I led a Shabbat service (see top pic) as students constructed the sukkah next to The Rock, on which they had painted the messages “TIkkun Olam Means Free Palestine” and “None of Us are Free Until All of Us are Free.” Dozens of people enthusiastically in the ceremony, which culminated in the final touches on the structure and the communal blessing for dwelling in the sukkah.

Two hours after the end of the service, we learned that campus police had come, thrown the student’s sukkah in a truck and drove it away.

There is little more to be said: this is what things have come to in American Jewish life. Jewish religious expression of solidarity with an oppressed people is deemed “antisemitic” while college campuses are desecrating sacred Jewish ritual with impunity. These facts tell you everything you need to know about the moment we are currently in.

In the end, however, the destruction of these symbolic fragile structures must not and should not be viewed primarly as an act of repression against Jewish college students. This would be an egregious misreading of the true meaning of Sukkot 2024. Rather, I fervently believe these acts must only serve to further sensitize us and deepen our outrage a desecration that is far more egregious and tragic: i.e., the genocidal violence that Israel has been inflicting on the Palestinians of Gaza, who have been seeking in vain for shelter for over a year.

And even more importantly, it must strengthen our resolve to do everything we can to create a real and lasting shelter – by finally bringing this heinous genocide to an end.