Virginia Tech Tragedy: Israeli Professor Killed

In an effort to negate the ridiculous "Israel is a war zone, it's not safe to visit" mularkey, I recently poked holes with links to recent events of random violence in America. It's easy to emotionally detach and make fun when you're a citizen of a mammoth country of 300 million people with so little national unity; the victims are just more nameless people in an endless and routine news cycle.

There is nothing funny or routine about what happened yesterday at Virginia Tech.

On the day that Israel commemmorated Yom Hashoah, America gathered around the televisions to mourn the loss of innocent university students. When I saw the headline, all I could say was "Oh my G-d...oh my G-d." One of the victims was Israeli professor Liviu Librescu, a senior researcher and lecturer of engineering. Professor Librescu apparently held his classroom door shut in an effort to keep out the gunman, before being shot.

Professor Liviu Librescu, killed yesterday at Virginia Tech

It's too early to take any lessons or be critical; all I can say is that tragedies like this make my heart hurt for America. While Israel has had periods of horrible loss of life in the mid-90s and early 2000's, we are immune to random acts of violence like this one, a shooting not done out of religous fanatacism or politics, but out of...what? Personal angst, like Columbine? The answers will come soon probably. Sadly, like suicide bombings in Israel, the shock from public shootings--SCHOOL SHOOTINGS even--in America has disappeared as the once-unthinkable has become not-, with these scenes repeating themselves again and again on television. At some point sadly, America will move on as CNN replaces this story with the next. For today at least, let's remember and mourn the 33 victims in Blacksburg.