One of the six hostages, abducted from Israel on Oct. 7 and found murdered in a Gaza tunnel this weekend, had family in Dallas. At 40, Carmel Gat was the oldest of the victims.
Joel Schwitzer, regional director for the American Jewish Committee, said it's important to realize the site where these bodies were discovered was less than a kilometer from the site of a successful rescue the week before.
"The whole Jewish world, the whole pro-Israel world, the whole pro-democracy world is reeling," he said.
Gat's cousin and Schwitzer met with Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson and City Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn in February.
"I watched her say to him, as she told Carmel's story, 'This is happening to me. This is happening to my family. We're your constituents, we're your community,'" Schwitzer said.
He said the mayor was supportive and inspired by the stories he was told about Carmel. She used her skills as an occupational therapist to do yoga with children in captivity to take their minds off of being held hostage.
"I can't help but be touched and inspired by one woman's ability to bring light to a very dark time," Schwitzer said.
In February, Schwitzer participated in a Jewish solidarity-sponsored mission to Israel and visited the site of the Supernova festival where so many people were murdered and abducted. A memorial on the site has pictures of each of the victims.
"It just pained me and it was abominable to think of all those young lives, people who were coming to a music festival, billed as a peace festival had been senselessly slaughtered and taken hostage," he said.
Schwitzer said he takes his inspiration from Hersh Goldberg-Polin's parents. His mother Rachel, at her son's funeral, spoke of how she's going to need to learn to feel his presence in new and different ways.
"So many of us share Rachel and John's pain and share the pain of Carmel's family. We're devastated," he said.