First Yahrtzeit
How Israelis, Jews around the world marked the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks
Nearly every Jewish community around the world hosts memorial ceremony for victims of Oct. 7 attacks, with some 400 scheduled across the United States
Alma Friden
From Stockholm to Sydney, from Shreveport, La., to Davenport, Iowa, from New York City to Los Angeles — practically every Jewish community around the world hosted a memorial ceremony for the victims of the Oct. 7 terror attacks yesterday, remembering the approximately 1,200 people murdered that day, the thousands more injured and the 253 who were kidnapped, 101 of whom remain in captivity.
The most prominent of these was the service held in Tel Aviv’s HaYarkon Park, where some 2,000 family members of Oct. 7 victims gathered for testimonies of survivors and relatives of those killed and captured, as well as performances by some of Israel’s biggest stars.
The Bereaved Families’ Oct. 7 Memorial Ceremony was meant to be the largest such event to mark the one-year anniversary of the attacks, but due to security concerns, the Israel Defense Forces’ Home Front Command limited the size of the crowd, preventing the 40,000 people who had purchased tickets from attending. The ceremony was instead live-streamed online and broadcast on all television channels in Israel, as well as 50 foreign networks. Public community screenings were held in over 150 cities both in Israel and abroad.
The widely hailed ceremony featured speakers and performers from across Israeli society; most expressed admiration for the bravery, self-sacrifice, love and unity displayed on Oct. 7, while others voiced frustration and even a sense of betrayal by the government during the attacks and in their aftermath.
Nitza Korngold, spoke about her son, Tal Shoham, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri along with six other members of her family while three others were killed; Yigal Cohen, the father of IDF observer Hadar Cohen who was killed at the Nahal Oz outpost, vowed that those who were responsible for the failure of protecting his daughter and the other observers would be brought to justice. Maysam Abu Wasel Darawshe described her brother Awad, a paramedic working at the Nova festival who died trying to save the wounded, as the light of the family and a dreamer who wanted to become a chef and a doctor. In a fiery speech, Yonatan Shamriz, one of the organizers of the ceremony whose brother Alon, was one of three hostages killed by friendly fire as they were trying to escape their captors, said Oct. 7 was what abandonment looked like.
The ceremony was held two hours before the broadcast of a pre-recorded state ceremony organized by Transportation Minister Miri Regev, which many of the bereaved families had opposed for fear that it would not tell their narrative.
At the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, thousands gathered late Monday night for a special Selichot service, which was attended by families of hostages, bereaved families and IDF reservists. During the service, the children of Yossi Hershkovitz, a reservist who was killed in battle in Gaza, and the children of Dr. Eitan Ne’eman, a combat doctor who was killed on Oct. 7, recited the Kaddish. A Torah scroll — donated by philanthropist Haim Taib — which was written by bereaved family members, released hostages, and wounded IDF soldiers, as well as prominent Israeli officials, was dedicated during the service.
More than 400 ceremonies have been organized to commemorate the Oct. 7 attacks, most of which were held yesterday or the day before, according to the Jewish Federations of North America, which has provided grants for many of them. Some events will be held later in the month, closer to the Hebrew date of the attacks, which occurred in Israel on Simchat Torah.
In Washington, D.C., President Joe Biden held an intimate memorial candle-lighting ceremony with his wife, Jill, and Rabbi Aaron Alexander of Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, a family friend of slain American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin.
Also in the capital, Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, planted a pomegranate tree outside of the Naval Observatory as a memorial to those killed one year ago.
“As the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said, a people that can walk through the valley of the shadow of death and still rejoice is a people that cannot be defeated by any force or fear,” Harris said. “That is why today we plant a pomegranate tree, which, in Judaism, is a symbol of hope and righteousness.”
Some 3,000 members of the Washington-area Jewish community and supporters gathered at the Anthem, a southwest D.C. concert venue, on Monday night for a memorial service organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, the Washington Board of Rabbis and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. The event featured a range of speakers, including Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog, two Jewish students from The George Washington University, a student poet from the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, author Sarah Hurwitz and local Jewish leaders. Earlier in the day, Dekel-Chen and Herzog also spoke at a memorial service organized by the American Jewish Committee.
To mark the anniversary, former President Donald Trump visited the grave of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Brooklyn and then participated in a ceremony at this Doral golf resort in Florida. In his remarks, Trump accused the Democratic party of harboring antisemitism and said the Oct. 7 attacks would never have happened if he had been president. “We will never let the horrors of Oct. 7 be repeated,” Trump added.
In New York City, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) were among the 5,000 people who gathered in Central Park Monday night in a ceremony organized by UJA Federation of New York, Jewish Community Relations Council and Hostage Family Forum to honor the victims of the attack with family and friends of victims and survivors. Ronen and Orna Neutra, parents of Israeli-American lone soldier Omer Neutra, who remains in captivity, spoke at the event, calling for a ceasefire deal as the only way to secure the release of the hostages.
In Los Angeles, several ceremonies were held during the day beginning in the early morning with hundreds of people gathered in Beverly Hills in a somber ceremony in the with community leaders, elected officials, religious leaders and residents at the city’s Garden Park next to a temporary Israel Flag installation featuring 1,400 Israeli flags from more than 30 countries, each one representing a victim of the attack.
“Now it’s more important than ever that we unite, and serve as a voice against hate and discrimination and antisemitism,” said Sharona Nazarian, Beverly Hills Vice Mayor at the ceremony.
On Sunday, the L.A. federation also held a reception and candle-lighting ceremony at the Museum of Tolerance of Los Angeles, where former hostage Andrey, Kozlov, who was freed in a rescue operation by the IDF along with three other hostages after eight months in captivity, addressed the ceremony.
“Today, we must continue our prayers for safety and peace. As conflict rises in the Middle East, we often see a troubling rise in antisemitism around the world, including here in L.A. So let me be unequivocally clear — antisemitism has absolutely no place in L.A.,” said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.