ORLANDO, Fla. – Out of a student population of roughly 66,000 at UCF, some 6,000 students are Jewish. And many of them know someone or know of someone who is currently under threat of a missile attack or kidnapping in Israel.
UCF Hillel student president Zach Landes said missiles rained down on his brother’s neighborhood Tuesday morning.
“Yeah there were some missiles near his apartment building, thankfully he was able to get to shelter and he’s doing alright right now,” Landes said.
Landes’ aunt and uncle, grandparents and 103-year-old great-grandmother also live in Israel.
“I’d say yeah this is definitely one of the scarier times of my life especially now that I’m old enough to understand things to be kind of aware of everything,” Landes said. “There should be no mistake or misinformation right now that these aren’t freedom fighters coming into Israel, they’re terrorists killing innocent men and children.”
Yet Landes, like so many of his fellow Jewish students, is trying to focus on his grades.
Most of the students are young men and women in their late teens or early twenties.
“And it’s a lot for someone to process,” Landes said. “Life has definitely changed. It’s hard sitting in class when you’re in a lecture hall with 300 other people and there’s a good chance 250 of them have no idea what’s going on, but for you, your life can change with one alert on your phone.”
Landes said he is not worried about his own safety. Yet.
“I can’t say that I am because I know we work very closely with UCF PD, they always have our backs. They’re an incredibly great organization. When past things like anti-Semitic events have happened around UCF or the Orlando area, they’re always the first ones to reach out to us and here to protect us. And we know they have our backs, they won’t let anything happen to us,” Landes said.
But Landes said he understands how quickly the situation can and will change.
“We learned our entire lives that we said, after the Holocaust, never again, but it’s happening, it’s now,” Landes said. “The most [Jewish] people were killed in one day since the Holocaust. That’s not something we can just look past.”
UCF Hillel students are gathering for a vigil Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the UCF Reflection Pond.
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