By the time the interfaith vigil for the lives lost in Palestine started, the crowd at McKeldin Mall had swelled to a few hundred. They were called to attention by a chant of “Free, free Palestine!”

Until that burst of energy, perhaps the most notable part of the scene was what it lacked. There’d been no shouting or chanting on the University of Maryand’s grassy quad. Students weren’t in each other’s faces. There wasn’t a line of campus police officers facing off protesters.

The controversial event hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine was ultimately a peaceful one, despite the contentious road to get here. The student group had to get a federal judge to intervene after their Oct. 7 vigil was canceled by university officials. They were allowed to move forward as long as organizers asked participants to identify themselves and followed university security’s crowd control measures.

Oct. 7 marks one year since Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis and took scores of hostages in a surprise attack. In response, Israel launched an expansive military operation against Hamas, killing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and leveling large swathes of the Gaza strip.

Holden Zeidman, a member of the Students for Justice in Palestine, said the group’s goal was “commemorating a year of Israel committing a genocide against the Palestinian people.” An evening vigil capped an all-day event where students heard speeches and attended teach-ins from groups like Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.

On Monday afternoon, community members gathered on blankets on the grass, some with their laptops open to squeeze in assignments. Others were nearby flying kites with rainbow tails bearing slogans such as “Free Palestine” and “From the River to the Sea.”

As the vigil kicked off around 6 p.m., the tone was somber: Palestinian students recounted their families’ time in Gaza and the trauma they had endured. A speaker read “If I Must Die,” first in English and then in Arabic, by Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian professor and poet killed by an airstrike in December. A senior read off names of those killed in Palestine for eight minutes, before revealing at the end that each name belonged to a child who hadn’t reached their first birthday. Organizers took a break so participants could pray.

The judge’s decision to allow the event to happen received some criticism from Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, who said students have a right to feel safe.

“While I deeply respect the rule of law and due process, I think Oct. 7 is an inappropriate date for such an event,” Moore wrote in a statement.

The tense road to the event could be felt in some preventative measures. To access the space, participants had to consent to a bag search and go through a metal detector. The mall was fenced off from the surrounding area.

Zeidman said while some people who didn’t support the event made some comments to gathered community members, he didn’t see anything “too problematic” throughout the day.

Isaac Shiner, a junior with the Jewish student group Maryland Hillel, was walking back from Hornbake Plaza and what they called “Hostage Square” with other students holding displays of hostages that were taken by Hamas Oct. 7. They stopped to speak with event staff at the entrance of McKeldin Mall. Shiner said the display “brought the attention to where our emotions are.”

Shiner said he didn’t stop to talk with members of Students for Justice in Palestine.

“I’d love to have a conversation, a good faith conversation with anyone who would like to have a conversation, but I don’t think it’s in the spirit of their event right now to open up to the other side,” Shiner said. “I don’t think that’s what they’re looking to do, and I think it would be a little bit inappropriate if I confronted them at their event to bring in my own perspective.”

Rifka Handelman, president of the university’s chapter of the Jewish Voice for Peace, said in the Jewish faith, every life is sacred, and “one may break almost any of our commandments in order to save a life.”

“As the Jewish community descended from survivors of the Holocaust, we say never again. We do not say never forget,” Handelman said. “We say never again, and when we say never again, it means never again for anyone.”

At 8 p.m., Maryland Hillel hosted a vigil “to mark the one year anniversary of the October 7th massacre in Israel.” Participants filled a parking lot holding electric candles, mini Israeli flags. Many wore blue shirts that declared “Never Forget” with the Oct. 7 date below.

Handelman had been wearing that shirt on the mall, though they’d crossed out “forget,” replaced it with again, and added “for anyone” underneath.

Speakers at the event echoed many of the same messages heard at the pro-Palestinian vigil earlier in the evening. They wanted people to treat their lives as if they mattered, spoke to the pain of mourning friends and family and expressed frustration at feeling that no one cared about their plight. They sang songs and lifted candles together, sharing in their grief and expressing support for the state of Israel.

Hillel Executive Director Rabbi Ari Israel compared the incomprehension he feels in the face of violence since Oct. 7 to the way his 4-year-old grandson questions the world. He called the Palestinian vigil an “upside down debacle out on the mall today.”

“Instead of calling for divestment and anti-normalization, let us invest in understanding one another,” Israel said. “To not see students gathered here as oppressors, but as fellow students and human beings.”

Israel introduced U.S. Rep Steny Hoyer, a Democrat, as the “greatest friend the Zionist state of Israel has ever known.” Though Hoyer said he is a Baptist, he said he stands in solidarity with Jewish and Israeli people.

“You do not walk alone,” Hoyer said. “When they threaten you, they threaten me.”

Lucy Schneider, a social programming director for the Jewish Student Union and a Maryland Hillel intern, said Monday night that she respects everyone’s right to protest, including for the “civilians in Gaza and civilians in Lebanon and everyone who is innocently being murdered.”

“It definitely did cause a bit of tension, but we are here in peace,” Schneider said. “We all want happiness and peace and safety for all families.”

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