This story has been updated.
Anti-war protesters on Dunn Meadow rallied early Tuesday afternoon featuring members of Bloomington faith groups.
Speakers from Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faith communities gathered together to support students protesting the conflict in Gaza.
Anne Kavalerchik, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, said it’s important for her to speak at the rally because “never again” means never again.
“There's a genocide in Gaza,” she said. “And my Jewish history, my Jewish values, everything about me that is Jewish, which is everything, says that we have to stand and do everything we can against genocide.”
Dan Caldwell, the pastor of Sacred Heart church in Bloomington, said he came to pray and offer affirmations to the protesters.
“(I would love to) let these young people know that they should be proud of themselves for what they're doing, and that it takes a lot of courage, and that we see that and hopefully this makes a difference in Gaza,” he said.
The rally comes just after an Indiana State Police officer as well as the Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis asserted that the camp was guilty of anti-Semitic remarks and actions.
April Hennessey, a member the group, said those statements are simply untrue.
“Unless they can provide video evidence for that, I will adamantly stand by the fact that that did not happen,” she said. “I was here in those moments, I actually walked between the police line and the student line to sort of help de-escalate and communicate back and forth what was happening.”
Later on in the day, protesters continued their sit-in with teach-ins on various topics including “what are unions” and a history lesson on previous protests that have taken place on Dunn Meadow.
Read more: LIVE: Day 6 of protests on IU campus
Clayton Baumgarth contributed to this story.
Correction: A previous version of the story said the event was organized by the Bloomington Multifaith Alliance. The alliance says some of those involved are connected to them and the BMA distributed general planning information that turned into this event but did not organize the event itself.
