SAN DIEGO (SDJW) — Jewish leaders reflect on Oct. 7’s third anniversary
Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, said on Wednesday: “Three years after Hamas’s October 7 massacre against Israel, we remember those who were murdered and stand with the survivors and people of Israel who will forever carry with them the indelible scars of that day.
“This anniversary follows a year in which the hostages were finally brought home, the living and the dead, and no rockets from Gaza reached Israel. Yet Jewish life around the world remains under the same threats that were laid bare on October 8, 2023.
“Hamas carried out a genocidal massacre, yet Israel has been branded guilty of genocide in a grotesque inversion of reality. Governments, media outlets, and public figures have amplified this false accusation, undermined Israel’s right to exist, and ignored the irreparable harm they have caused Jewish communities. They must now answer for their role in normalizing hatred and making Jewish life unsafe.
“On this solemn anniversary, all nations must confront this failure, defend the truth, and commit to protecting Jewish life wherever it flourishes.
“When Jewish communities are made unsafe, Western societies are endangered, and the very values on which democratic nations are founded are betrayed.”
*
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism authored this prayer:
Three years have passed since October 7, 2023, the day that shattered the sense of safety for so many and changed Jewish life around the world.
We remember the more than 1,200 people murdered that day, including Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, and foreign nationals of multiple faiths. We remember the hostages taken from their homes, the families whose lives were forever changed, the communities attacked, and the profound grief carried by so many since that morning.
We also hold close those who have endured the devastating consequences of the war that followed, including countless Israeli and Palestinian families living with loss, displacement, fear, and uncertainty.
As a Jewish community, we gather in this moment to remember, to mourn, and to affirm our commitment to a future in which Jewish people can live safely and freely, Palestinians can live with dignity and security, and all people can know peace.
May the memories of those we lost be a blessing. May those still carrying grief find comfort and strength. And may this year bring us closer to a day when no family has to experience such loss again.
*
Yoni Gilboa. director of ZAKA Tel-Aviv, assembled this remembrance: Three years ago today, at 6:30 am, the sirens began.
By nightfall, we understood that the gates of hell had opened.
Bloodthirsty terrorists turned our kibbutzim into battlefields. They slaughtered and desecrated our sons and daughters. Babies, children, teenagers, elderly people.
Our volunteers raced south while the area was still swarming with terrorists. As they advanced, they hid from terrorists and treated the wounded wherever they could. They saved soldiers’ lives with tourniquets. They snatched bodies when they could, so the terrorists couldn’t take them.
They found bodies with hands riddled with bullet holes, from people who instinctively raised them to shield their faces from the gunfire.
They spent weeks at Shura identifying victims and preparing them for burial. Refrigerated trucks meant for Tnuva dairy products arrived one after another, each carrying 30–40 bodies from Nova and the kibbutzim.
And our volunteers opened the bags. In one, a pregnant woman, slaughtered. In another, the tiny body of a baby. One with black soot. A scan revealed the DNA of two parents with their child between them. In another, just a few vertebrae. That was all that remained of a person burned.
ZAKA volunteers worked like machines. Those who broke down fought their screaming psyches to continue.
Outside Shura’s walls, families waited for days, not knowing if their loved ones had been murdered or kidnapped. When our volunteers stepped out after entire nights identifying bodies, families ran to them, crying, holding up photos of their children and grandchildren. “Try to remember. Maybe you saw him.”
They had seen hundreds of bodies that night. How could they have answers?
So they vowed to keep sacrificing body and soul to bring as many people as possible to burial. Time cannot fade the scars in their souls, or the horrors they absorbed for the nation. And yet, they have answered the call every single day since.
Today we renew our vow that no one gets left behind: to fight to save every life we can, and preserve the dignity of those we can’t.
On the anniversary of October 7th, turn your mourning into action. Honor the memory of the fallen by protecting the living.
Your gift today puts volunteers on the scene in minutes, with the equipment to save a life. It brings every victim dignity and gives families comfort in their worst agony. And it sustains the people who carry the unbearable, with the mental health support that keeps them in the field.
When disaster strikes in Israel, ZAKA is there.
*
Rabbi Mendel Katz of Chabad of Chula Vista: Pain? Grief? Anger? Jewish pride? Perhaps all of these at once.
We remember the 1,200+ people murdered in the terrorist attacks in Israel. We remember the lives stolen, the families torn apart, and the suffering that followed. So many tears have been shed. So many emotions continue to surround us.
As I pause to reflect on this day, one powerful truth stands out.
Being Jewish is something we carry with us every moment of our lives.
The terrorists did not ask how often someone attended synagogue, whether they observed Shabbat, how much they knew about Judaism, or whether they identified as Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox. They murdered innocent children in their homes, families going about their lives, and young people gathered at a music festival.
For the Jews they targeted, simply being Jewish was enough.
That hatred brings into sharp focus a truth we must embrace with love and pride:
When we walk down the street, we are Jewish.
When we eat and sleep, we are Jewish.
When we do business, we are Jewish.
When we enter a synagogue, we are Jewish.
Jewish is not an add-on. It is at the core of who we are, woven into our souls. Our Jewishness does not begin when we open a prayer book or end when we leave a holiday celebration.
On this day of remembrance, I invite you to carry that truth forward through action.
Take on one more mitzvah. Put on tefillin. Light Shabbat candles. Give tzedakah. Set aside time for Torah study. Reach out to another Jew with warmth and love. Let our Jewish identity find expression in the way we live, every single day.
*
Shira Ben-Sasson, New Israel Fund’s executive director in Israel: Three years ago, on October 7, our world changed forever.
The wounds from that day are still raw. Israelis are still grieving the losses of that day and all that followed, even as they have endured many months of instability under rocket fire in continued wartime. In Gaza, the destruction is unimaginable and the rebuilding has barely begun. People are still living in harsh conditions and suffering immensely from continued Israeli attacks.
There is no resolution. No peace has been declared. Not yet.
But I do know this: three years after October 7, there is a path forward. Because endless war, conflict, and violence do not lead anywhere but to more of the same. Only a sustainable peace can secure dignity, safety, and freedom for all Israelis and Palestinians.
It’s not easy or popular but there are people with the moral courage and imagination to choose the path of peace. Einav Zangauker spent nearly two years fighting for her son Matan’s return from captivity in Gaza, enduring threats and intimidation, calling out a government she believed was betraying the hostages. When Matan finally came home, she didn’t stop. She kept fighting for everyone still waiting.
Maoz Inon lost his parents when they were killed in their kibbutz home on October 7. Aziz Abu Sarah lost his brother many years earlier after being abused in detention by the Israeli army. While the trauma of these losses could have hardened and forever driven them apart, instead, they became partners and two of the most powerful voices for peace and reconciliation.
Through their leadership and action, people like Einav, Maoz and Aziz are showing us what is possible beyond October 7. Revenge leads nowhere. Violence will never make us more secure. The only path forward is toward peace, equality, and a shared future.
That’s why I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Because NIF’s work is how we can begin to heal.
We stand behind a movement of people who not only believe in a better future—they are doing everything they can to make it real. The protective presence activists standing with Palestinian communities in the West Bank. The lawyers fighting for equal rights in Israeli courts. The Jewish and Arab citizens organizing together for a future of safety and dignity. The bereaved families who lost what was most precious to them and somehow find their way to the path of peace.
They refuse to give up on the possibility of something better. And we will stand with them every step of the way.
Together, we’re paving the long road of healing and repair from October 7 and the war that followed. We’re building this place into what we know it can be—for Jews, for Palestinians, for everyone who calls this land home.
*
San Diego Jewish World staff roundup.