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Brandeis U reeling after bus accident leaves 1 student dead, dozens injured; Jewish students hold vigils
WALTHAM, Massachusetts (JTA) — The days before Thanksgiving break were supposed to be packed at Brandeis University’s Hillel: There was a talk on Sunday about sexuality in Judaism, a ceremony for students who participated in a study program and a forum for candidates running to help lead the campus Jewish center.
Instead, Hillel canceled everything and instead threw open its doors for students and faculty in need of comfort and support after one of their classmates was killed and dozens more injured in an accident involving a shuttle bus many of them take regularly.
The crash occurred at 10:45 p.m. Saturday only a half mile from campus, sending shockwaves through the Brandeis community.
Rabbi Seth Winberg, the executive director of the school’s Hillel and the university’s senior chaplain, said scores of students have reached out to his organization since the deadly accident, unsettled after learning about it from communications from the college and in text messages from friends. He said he has also heard from parents and alumni, from as far away as Israel.
“We are trying to help students process and grieve,” Winberg told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
That was the theme on campus Sunday, as details emerged about the crash and its aftermath. The bus, operated by a contractor who provides transportation services to Brandeis, was returning students to campus from a hockey game at Northeastern University, according to the local district attorney’s office, which is investigating the accident.
BREAKING: Bus crash on South St in Waltham near Brandeis University. #wbz pic.twitter.com/A3DFnqwc6o
— AndreaWBZ (@AndreaWBZ) November 20, 2022
Images and video posted to social media showed that the bus was heavily damaged, its front end virtually disintegrated, its roof shredded after a rollover and all windows broken. Debris was still piled at the South Street crash site Sunday afternoon.
One student died at the scene. Vanessa Mark was “an active and cherished member of the Brandeis community” who was on leave but living in Waltham, according to an announcement by the school’s president, Ron Liebowitz, on Sunday.
By early Sunday afternoon, five of the 26 people who had been hospitalized immediately following the crash remained in the hospital, Julie Jette, Brandeis’s assistant vice president for communications wrote in an email. Jette cautioned that the information was fluid because of the severity of the crash and the complexity of the situation.
“Given the number of injured people and the different hospitals to which they were transported, it is taking time to determine the status of everyone involved,” she said.
Liebowitz announced in a message to the community Sunday that classes would be canceled on Monday and Tuesday and counseling services would be made widely available.
“This will enable some students to return to family and friends sooner than the normal holiday schedule would have allowed,” he wrote. “For students who will remain on campus, we will have additional opportunities to gather and receive support.”
Liebowitz outlined the resources available to students at a community meeting Sunday morning, where hundreds of students crowded into the campus center for a community-wide gathering about the accident, Winberg told JTA.
Students remained after the gathering for up to an hour, according to Samantha Brody, a junior from Deerfield, Illinois, who is the president of Hillel’s student board.
Students “want to reach out and see each other,” Brody said. “There were lots of hugs.”
She added that both conversation and quiet contemplation were called for: “Everyone needs something different.”
Brandeis, a nonsectarian college, has its roots in the American Jewish community, which founded the liberal arts institution in 1948 at a time when Jews were often restricted in student admissions and in faculty appointments to competitive colleges. Today, just over a third of undergraduates self-identify as Jewish, according to various published reports.
Students active in Hillel and its leaders quickly came together to organize gatherings to offer support. The Brandeis Orthodox student group scheduled an afternoon prayer service, while the Brandeis Reform Chavurah and Masorti (Conservative) student groups jointly organized a service of their own. On Sunday evening, the community planned to come together to sing niggunim, or wordless melodies, as a quiet way to offer comfort.
“These are examples that show how everyone wants to be together, in person,” Brody told JTA.
Brody said on Sunday afternoon that she did not know anyone who was on the bus but knows people whose friends were. She said she has taken the shuttle bus before.
“Most people on campus have. It’s the easiest way to get to Boston. Everyone is thinking, ‘it could have been me,’” she added.
That was true for Draken Garfinkel, a Jewish senior from the Washington, D.C., area who was not on the bus. “I use it every week to see my brother,” a student at another college in Boston, he said.
When he learned about the crash early Sunday morning, from the university’s communication and from text messages from friends, Garfinkel immediately wanted to do something to help others — especially those on the bus who were hospitalized, he told JTA in a phone conversation.
One of those students is a friend, a foreign exchange student, he said.
He and others who are part of an activist student group helped organize sending text messages to students they knew were in the hospital as a way to express concern for their well being.
It’s important for all students to be aware of counseling services that are available, he emphasized, adding, “One of the worst things is when people don’t know don’t how to deal with grief.”
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Iran’s President Says Immediate Cessation of US-Israeli Aggression Needed to End War
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that there needs to be an “immediate cessation” of what he described as US-Israeli aggression to end the war and wider regional conflict, Iran’s embassy in India said in an X post on Saturday.
Pezeshkian spoke with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi by phone earlier in the day.
Pezeshkian told Modi that there should be guarantees to prevent a recurrence of such “aggression” in the future. He also called on the BRICS bloc of major emerging economies to play an independent role in halting aggression against Iran.
The Iranian president proposed a regional security framework comprising West Asian countries to ensure peace without foreign interference, according to the country’s embassy in India.
In a separate post on X earlier on Saturday, Modi said he condemned attacks on critical infrastructure in the Middle East in the discussion with Pezeshkian.
The Indian Prime Minister further reiterated the importance of safeguarding freedom of navigation and ensuring shipping lanes remain open and secure.
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Trump’s Peace Board Hands Hamas Disarmament Proposal, Sources Say
US President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff attend the inaugural Board of Peace meeting at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 19, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Donald Trump’s Board of Peace has presented Hamas with a written proposal on how it could lay down its weapons, two sources said, a step the Palestinian terrorists have thus far refused to take as the US president pushes on with his plan for Gaza’s future.
The proposal, first reported by NPR, was submitted to Hamas during meetings in Cairo over the past week, one of the sources said. The talks were attended by Nickolay Mladenov and Aryeh Lightstone, the two sources familiar with the matter said.
Mladenov is the Trump-appointed Board of Peace envoy to Gaza. Lightstone is a US aide to Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Trump’s Gaza plan, to which Israel and Hamas agreed in October, sees Israeli troops withdrawing from Gaza and reconstruction starting as Hamas lays down its weapons.
Mladenov on Thursday said that serious efforts were underway to bring relief to war-torn Gaza, with a framework agreed by the mediators that could advance reconstruction in the enclave, much of which lies in ruins.
“It is now on the table. It requires one clear choice: full decommissioning by Hamas and every armed group, with no exceptions and no carve-outs. In this season of hope, may those responsible make the right choice for the Palestinian people,” Mladenov said on X in a post for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr.
Representatives of Hamas were not immediately available for comment on Saturday, the second day of the holiday. Talks on disarmament had been placed on hold at the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran which began on February 28.
AMNESTY OFFER MAY BE ON THE TABLE
US officials have said that Iran-backed Hamas could be offered amnesty in any deal under which they agree to lay down any heavy weaponry and light arms including rifles.
Sources close to Hamas say the group would likely refuse to give up their rifles for fear of attacks by rival militias in Gaza, some of which have backing from Israel. Hamas and its rivals have staged deadly attacks on one another since the October ceasefire.
One of the sources said much would depend on what is acceptable to Israel, which demands the group’s complete disarmament.
Some of Hamas’ prominent officials have outright rejected any disarmament over the past few months.
Israel has shown no sign of withdrawing its troops who are in control of around half of Gaza’s territory, with Hamas keeping a firm grip on the other half of the enclave and its two million population, most of which has been rendered homeless by two years of devastating war.
The source said that amnesty and targeted investments in Gaza were being offered as incentives for Hamas, but said that it was unclear whether the Board of Peace would have funds to pay for it.
Trump garnered some $7 billion in pledges in February from countries, including some in the Gulf, before those same countries came under attack by Iran in a widening Middle East war.
The source said that only a small amount of those pledged funds had actually been provided, without specifying sums.
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Iran War’s Energy Impact Forces World to Pay Up, Cut Consumption
Prices are seen at a gas station on Capitol Hill amid the US-Israeli war with Iran, in Washington, D.C., US, March 19, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard
The war in the Middle East has triggered a nightmare scenario for the global energy system, slashing so much supply that consumers around the world must both pay up big and lower consumption.
The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow channel along the Iranian coast, has stopped the passage of 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas since the US and Israel began airstrikes on Iran on February 28.
Meanwhile, ongoing strikes by Iran and Israel have targeted Middle East energy infrastructure, doing damage to gas fields, oil refineries, and terminals that industry representatives say will take years to repair.
All of that adds up to what the International Energy Agency has already called the worst global energy disruption in history, eclipsing even the Arab oil embargo of 1973 that caused fuel shortages and triggered widespread economic damage.
“You’re not going to conserve your way around this. What it’s going to translate to is price rises high enough that people stop consuming,” said Dan Pickering, chief investment officer for Pickering Energy Partners.
So far, the crisis has removed about 400 million barrels – about four days of world supply – from the market, triggering price increases of around 50 percent.
Oil, gas, and their refined byproducts are critical to many parts of the modern world, from fueling cars, trucks and planes, to powering homes and industry, to producing plastics and fertilizers.
“The breadth of what is at risk here in fuels, chemicals, LNG and fertilizer inputs is what makes this moment qualitatively different from previous episodes of Gulf tension,” said Aditya Saraswat, senior vice president at consultancy Rystad Energy.
Energy price shocks also fuel inflation, hitting consumers and businesses hard. This has become a major political liability for US President Donald Trump as he seeks to justify the war to the American public.
Trump has assailed NATO allies over their lack of support for the US-Israeli war against Iran, calling the longtime US allies “cowards.”
PRICE SHOCK
Global benchmark oil prices have already risen more than 50% to over $110 a barrel since the war started. The impacts are more pronounced for Middle East crudes – a staple for Asian economies – with prices hitting records near $164.
That has translated to soaring prices for transport fuels, pressuring consumers and businesses across the globe, and triggering government action to conserve supplies.
Thailand, for example, ordered civil servants to conserve energy by suspending overseas trips and using stairs instead of elevators, while Bangladesh closed its universities.
Sri Lanka has imposed fuel rationing, China has banned refined fuel exports, and the UK government’s energy contingency plan includes a cut in speed limits to save fuel.
On Friday, the International Energy Agency outlined other proposals to reduce demand, such as working from home and avoiding air travel, which has already been severely disrupted after the war forced the closure of key Middle Eastern hubs.
The IEA earlier this month agreed to make a record 400 million barrels of oil available from emergency stockpiles. But analysts say the measure is too small since 400 million barrels covers only about 20 days of the war’s impact.
Natasha Kaneva, a JP Morgan analyst, said reducing demand is the only solution when supplies fall short.
“The market is facing an acute shortage of products (…) that cannot be consumed simply because they are not available,” she said.
For everything that remains, prices are surging.
Jet fuel prices in Europe, for example, hit a record of around $220 per barrel – a cost that is likely to filter down fast in the form of more expensive airline tickets. In the US, which imports very little Middle Eastern oil, retail gasoline prices are up more than a dollar a gallon since February 28 to around $4 a gallon.
Natural gas prices in Europe and Asia are soaring after tit-for-tat strikes by Israel and Iran in recent days slammed Gulf gas installations. Consumer power costs could also leap.
Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gas field on Wednesday, and Iran hit Qatar’s massive Ras Laffan LNG complex the day after. QatarEnergy’s CEO Saad al-Kaabi told Reuters Iranian attacks will knock out 12.8 million tons per year of LNG – about 3 percent of world supply – for three to five years.
The situation is critical since oil and gas products are vital to everything from pharmaceuticals to plastics and fertilizers, said Menelaos Ydreos, secretary general of the International Gas Union, a grouping of world gas producers.
“We, again, call for an immediate stop to the targeting of energy facilities and for the resumption of cargo traffic through the Strait of Hormuz as fertilizers, petrochemicals for the pharmaceutical industry, oil, grain, and gas are all critical to our existence,” he said in a statement.
FOOD THREAT
The war also threatens food supply. It has severely disrupted fertilizer markets because about a third of global trade in fertilizers typically passes through the Strait of Hormuz and is now stuck.
Prices for nitrogen-based products like urea, the most critical fertilizer product, have risen 30 percent to 40 percent since the conflict began. US farmers were already reporting empty shop shelves ahead of spring planting.
Fertilizer factories in India, Bangladesh and Malaysia are moving to halt orders, cut production or shut down altogether because of a lack of feedstocks.
If the conflict lasts just a few more weeks, global food supplies will be significantly disrupted, said Maximo Torero, chief economist with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
“This will affect planting… There will be a lower supply of commodities in the world – of staple cereals, of feed, and therefore of dairy and meat,” he said.
About half the world’s food is grown using fertilizers, which in some countries account for up to half the cost of grain production.