A Boston rabbi offered a first-hand account of what occurred when Hamas was carrying out its deadly terrorist attack on Israel, speaking of bullet-riddled babies and a young girl being raped while her father was forced to listen over the phone.
Grand Rabbi Y.A. Korff, chaplain for the City of Boston, said he was in the Jerusalem Great Synagogue in Israel when the attack occurred on Oct. 7. He joined other chief rabbis in evacuating the building and taking refuge in bomb shelters when “air raid sirens went off.”
“The blessing of it was I was able to give some comfort to the people and families who were mourning,” Korff said at a Wednesday City Council meeting before leading the body in its weekly prayer.
Korff said he saw photos in the days that followed, of “bullet-ridden babies with their heads cut off,” and comforted a father whose daughter was missing.
The father later received a phone call from his daughter’s cell phone, but it wasn’t her on the other end. It was a member of the terrorist organization Hamas, who said, “I’m about to rape your daughter. I’d like you to listen, and when I’m done, I have friends,” the rabbi recounted.
“This is inhumanity,” Korff said. “This is pure terrorism, barbarism. To support Hamas is unacceptable.”
While Korff said he wasn’t at the council meeting to make a political statement, he did speak about the need to rid the region of Hamas, to support the Palestinians who deserve to “live in freedom and peace within their own state.”
He also criticized some of the protests occurring at home and around the world, “not in sympathy with Palestinian civilians, but supporting what Hamas terrorists did and celebrating it.”
“That’s what’s unacceptable,” Korff said. “I have to stop,” as he began to get upset.
