Residents living along Knox Road may have found it more difficult than usual to get sleep Monday night as a massive, loud influx of people flooded the walkway between Terrapin Row and Dunkin’ Donuts.
Photo by Khloe Quill
Those people happened to be Jewish people celebrating Simchat Torah, a Jewish holiday following Sukkot, which is a major Jewish festival held in autumn and celebrated for seven days.
Simchat Torah begins in the evening after Sukkot and lasts until the next evening. It is celebrated by dancing, singing, and rejoicing.
(Image from Amir Appel on Flickr)
The boisterous display prompted many residents from both South Campus Commons and Terrapin Row to exit their buildings and find the source of the disruption. Many even went on to partake in the festivities, with a couple of people assuming it was some sort of drunken revelry.
One group of students loudly proclaimed midway through walking over “Wait, we should take shots first! Solidarity!” before racing back to their apartment building, presumably to take said shots.
At one point, a police car did show up to the scene, lights flashing, but soon turned its lights off and drove away, leaving the crowd to revel in their celebration.
When asked whether people usually go all out to celebrate this holiday, Charlie Goehl, a sophomore at UMD, who is also a Jewish replied through laughter “Yes. Always!”
People began trickling out of the masses around 1 a.m., and by 1:30 a.m., the streets had returned to silence.
(Image from Pixabay)