HopNews
Tonight, the Hopkinton Freedom Team hosted a vigil for peace on the Town Common in response to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. In addition to more than 50 Hopkinton residents, several local leaders were in attendance, including State Representative James Arena-DeRosa, Town Manager Norman Khumalo, Superintendent of Schools Carol Cavanaugh, and Chief of Police Joseph Bennett.
Pastor Laurel Coolbaugh of Faith Community Church offered a blessing and led the group in prayer, followed by Priest Syed Hussaini of the Islamic Masumeen Center in Hopkinton. Messrs. Arena-DeRosa and Khumalo spoke as did Dr. Cavanaugh. The group held several prayers and moments of silence.
“Bringing the community together in times of crisis is incredibly important,” said Arena-DeRosa. “It also brings the temperature down. It’s important to get conversations going early in the community and in our schools.”
“It’s important for our kids to witness unity, love and peace in their own community,” added Dr. Cavanaugh.
Raise a voice for who? Which injustice? This is very biased and presents a black and white reality without the complexity in the middle east. SHAME!
Just to clarify, UU, are you saying the article is biased, or are you saying that Sayed Hussaini, who is a Muslim priest, is biased in his views?
Sayed Hussaini took a Vigil for Peace and turned it into his own political rhetoric. Shame on him!
This was a beautiful event as a peace vigil for the local community and priest Sayed Hussaini of the Islamic center treated it as a political event with his agenda and incorrect facts and propaganda. He called Isreal terrorists and stating they are bombing schools and hospitals which was very biased and not the intention of the night.
Shame on the Hopkinton Freedom Team for not providing a balanced event for our community. I was unable to attend due to work commitments and am very disappointed in what I heard. Aside from representative Arena-DeRosa’s opening comments – which were balanced and fair – this was not a uifying Peace Vigil, but rather a one-sided political event. Per their facebook page, “The mission of the Hopkinton Freedom Team is to “preserving freedom through unity in the community.” Its members meet monthly to explore ways of offering dialogue and support to individuals and the entire community with a goal of promoting love, inclusion and trust (“LIT”) and moving beyond tolerance to embracing, celebrating and sharing our community’s diversity.” I would love to know if any Jewish Leaders were invited to attend this event and if so, did they decline? Is that why there was no representation? This was hardly an event for “preserving freedom through unity in the community”. This felt very divisive.
It was a good attempt by many of our town leaders to try to bring unity, healing and love to our town. I do not think it could be predicted that Priest Syed Hussaini of the Islamic Masumeen Center in Hopkinton would use his speaking platform to share his political thoughts. He clearly shared his political views and when doing so he did not denounce the horrific trauma Hamas continues to inflict on innocent Israeli people today and in the past. It would have been better if he kept his political views to himself, but he did not.
A true spiritual leader would be promoting kindness and compassion towards all people. A spiritual leader would bring us together and not divide us further. Instead he ignored the suffering of the town’s Jewish Community, reinforced antisemitic beliefs, and he did more harm than good. He conveniently did not mention or denounce Hamas and how this terrorist organization wants to kill all Jews.
I hope Priest Syed Hussaini reflects on the fact that he actually opened up more wounds instead of trying to help heal a community. I think he owes the Jewish Community an apology.
Well said Ms. Manning! Thank you!
Thanks PR
Thank you, Hopnews, for posting the videos of the speeches so that readers who did not attend the vigil can judge for themselves.