Rabbi Shalom Axelrod: In it for the long haul [Video]

Hamas is ISIS. Hamas is worse than ISIS.

And this is now just a Jewish issue. But the evil that manifested itself last week cannot stand and we are here to say is a loud voice, “Hashomer achi anochi,” are you your brothers keepers? And we are answering all here today, Yes!

On Friday, I got a call from a student of mine that I taught in the late ’90s in Rambam, and he said to me — he's a captain now up north by Lebanon with 4,000 soldiers — he said, rebbe, I want you to know that we have heard what you are doing in the Five Towns. So take a picture of the crowd. And I want everyone to say loud and clear, we stand with the IDF [crowd chants, “We stand with the IDF”].

Our community has come together almost like no other. But as was mentioned before, this is not a fight of days, this is not going to be a fight of just a few weeks, and we have to be in it. I know that we're talking to people [and] every day you're looking at your phones and every day you're thinking about all your relatives. Raise your hand if have a cousin, a nephew, a sibling fighting in the IDF right now.

Understand what kind of issue this is. This is an issue that's personal for each and every one of them. And we have to be in it for the long haul.