My neighbor killed himself

Arieh Diamond (top right) who lived two doors down my hall ended his life on Sunday afternoon, jumping in front of an Amtrak train at the New Brunswick train station.

A friend of ours told me she saw him crying in the stairwell a couple days before he died. She asked him what was wrong, but he said that nothing was. She said she would be in the basement lounge studying if he wanted to talk, but he never took her up on her offer.

Arieh was a practicing Orthodox Jew, and the Jewish community here, although mournful of his passing, was ashamed of the fact that Arieh's death was self-inflicted.

It's strange to walk past his door now. Since it happened, I've been thinking about his walk to the train station from his room. He must have passed so many familiar things on his way: the Hillel House, buildings where he took classes, the Center for Jewish Studies. This is the closest I've ever been to a suicide.