The war that raged over the weekend in Israel came home to Colorado Monday evening as more than a thousand people from the Jewish community and other faiths joined for a prayer vigil at Temple Emanuel in Denver.

“This is a moment we haven’t seen since 1973, unprecedented in my lifetime,” said Ben Lusher, board chair of Jewish Colorado, as a long line waited to enter the sanctuary at Emanuel.

Jewish Colorado sponsored the event in concert with other Jewish organizations, such as Rocky Mountain Rabbis and Cantors.

The evening was offered as a time for mourning, prayer and solidarity in the wake of the surprise attack Saturday that took a reported 900 lives – including those of 11 Americans.

Like many others in the crowd, Lusher was worrying about family in Israel – in his case, his parents Barry and Gay Curtiss-Lusher, who told their son by phone that they were shuttling between their Tel Aviv hotel and a bomb shelter, sometimes for false alarms, sometimes for actual bombs exploding.

“They’re frazzled,” Lusher told The Denver Gazette. “They heard Iron Dome going off,” referring to the Israeli antimissile system.

After several U.S. airlines canceled flights to and from Israel in the wake of the attack, Lusher now has his parents booked Tuesday on an El Al flight to Athens after hearing that El Al has reportedly continued operating. But he has backup flights for them later in the week to Lisbon and Los Angeles, if necessary.

The outbreak of war had personal consequences for many Colorado families, according to Rabbi Yaakov Chaitovsky of Congregation BMH-BJ in Denver, who was among many Jewish leaders at the vigil.

“The shock of what has taken place is mind boggling,” he told The Denver Gazette before the gathering. “More civilians have died than soldiers. Music festival goers were indiscriminately murdered. Women, children, and senior citizens are now hostages in Gaza. Americans are among the dead and the captured.”

Chaitovsky added: “What has happened has shaken our Jewish brothers and sisters there to the core. It will be some time before anyone is ‘OK’.”

Scott Levin, regional director of the Mountain States ADL, told the gathering that Saturday had represented the single largest daily death toll suffered by the Jewish community since the World War II Holocaust. He was joined on the platform by members of Colorado’s congressional delegation and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston.

Rabbi Avraham Mintz of Chabad Jewish Center of South Metro Denver, which had just completed its round of high holiday services at sites in Greenwood Village and Lone Tree, told The Denver Gazette he has at least two worshipers who were climbing aboard flights to Tel Aviv, responding to callups for reservists by the Israeli Defense Forces.

One of those, he said, was leaving a wife behind and a young daughter enrolled in the synagogue’s school.

Mintz said the attack, carried out as Jews celebrated their Simchat Torah holiday, cast a pall over Sabbath services Saturday, during what is generally among the most joyous events of the faith’s calendar year. On Simchat Torah, Jews celebrate concluding their year-long reading of the first five books of the Bible and then return to the cycle again.

“I would never have believed it. It was challenging, a different kind of rejoicing with broken hearts,” Mintz said.

He added: “With the pain that so many are going through, we have to overcome this darkness with light and goodness, and let the world know that what happened is not OK.”

“What’s being done by Hamas is horrific, a level of terrorism the world has never seen,” said Lowry resident Larry Greer, who with his wife Marian was among the large crowd waiting in line to get in.

“We have never before seen this massive hostage taking, of women, children, old people,” Greer said. “There’s a place for prayer, a place for support, but then I don’t know.”

As she waited with her husband, Marian Greer said the events would inevitably come back as an even greater catastrophe for people living in Gaza.

“They’re bringing disaster to their own people,” she said.

Members of the Jewish community were joined at the event by clergy from other faiths who turned out in support of Israel.

“Heartbreak,” replied Father Michel Nicosia of St. Paul Catholic Community of Faith, when asked about his first reactions to Saturday’s attacks. He said he was representing the Colorado Council of Churches.

“It’s just appalling, especially when we don’t have our government together so we can coalition with Israel,” said Pastor Paul Burleson of 500-member Friendship Baptist Church in Denver.

Burleson, who serves as political affairs chair for the Greater Denver Ministerial Alliance, said he had turned out to show support from the broader community.

“We’re invested,” he said.

“The world can now see Hamas’s true colors,” Rabbi Chaitovsky told The Denver Gazette. “Those who have been reluctant, for whatever reason, to label Hamas a terrorist organization must honestly change their perspective.

“I doubt that will actually happen, but it clearly should.”

The event at Temple Emanuel concluded with a Jewish prayer for the dead sung by BMH-BJ Cantor Martin Goldstein.

Other event sponsors included the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Anti-Defamation League, Israeli American Council, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the Jewish National Fund.