With much of the world bracing for the October 7 commemoration of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, New Yorkers find themselves struggling with how best to commemorate a tragic event that is very much still unfolding.
Bombing campaigns are just as intense as they were that day when rockets ricocheted across Gaza. Hostages that were abducted and separated from their families remain unaccounted for. And the tensions that gripped New York City in the hours and days after the attack have not released their grip.
“The last year has been an incredibly trying and difficult time for the Jewish people with the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust,” said Julie Menin, a member of the City Council’s Jewish Caucus.
As the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Menin has made it a personal crusade to combat hateful and antisemitic attacks in New York City in the months since the start of the Israel-Hamas war abroad.
“Here at home, it is our responsibility to condemn the uptick in antisemitism and hate crimes, on college campuses and beyond, with every fiber of our being,” Menin said. “There is always the sacrosanct right to peacefully protest, but when that right crosses over into inciting violence it should not be protected.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader from New York, on Saturday likened the October 7 attack to the Holocaust.
“October 7 is a day that will live in infamy,” Schumer told The New York Daily News in a videotaped statement. “The world has rarely seen, in thousands of years of history, such brutality, such viciousness as evil Hamas terrorists murdered women and children and the elderly and raped women with reckless abandon. It was a horrible, horrible day reminiscent of the Nazi brutality of the Holocaust.
“Hamas used this horrible, horrible day to try and scare the Israeli people, the American people and freedom-loving people in the world into submission, but they failed. And we will never, never forget what happened on October 7,” Schumer added.
New York City is home to the largest concentration of Jews outside of Israel. As the October 7 anniversary approaches, that status has put the city on high alert, physically and emotionally. The New York Police Department has boosted patrols around the city even as bomb threats targeted synagogues across the state in the midst of Rosh Hashanah celebrations last week.
Mayor Eric Adams told the Daily News that New Yorkers should be able to commemorate the somber anniversary without fear of violence.
“The largest Jewish population outside of Israel is here in New York. Just as with the Israeli Day parade, we were very clear when many people wanted us not to have the parade because it was a high level of threats, we did it and we made sure that everyone was safe,” said Adams during an appearance at Saturday’s annual Korean American Parade in Manhattan.
“We’re going to make sure that people are able to acknowledge the pain of that day without any interference and making sure that those who want to peacefully protest, they can do so peacefully. We are not going to tolerate violence or acts of disruptive destruction of property. It’s a very painful day for not only Jewish New Yorkers but all New Yorkers that witnessed what happened.”
But as law enforcement groups focus on threats and public safety, other organizations and professionals have concentrated their resources on two other areas — hearts and minds.
Community groups from Staten Island to Union Square will host events on Monday aimed at fostering healing and understanding.
Israelis for Peace NYC will hold an evening vigil honoring those killed on and since October 7, while demanding a ceasefire and the return of the hostages from Gaza.
South Brooklyn even to feature speeches and prayers
The Kings Bay in South Brooklyn will host an evening of songs, speeches, and prayers featuring Atir Vinnikov, a Nova Music Festival survivor, who is scheduled to recount the story of how a Bedouin Israeli man rescued him and his friends.
The festival was one of the venues attacked during the terrorist massacre.
“These should be days of rejoicing as the Jewish community celebrates the beginning of a new year, but we know that there is a somber atmosphere as we mark the one-year anniversary of the evil, heinous terrorist attack against Israel last year on October 7,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Brooklyn Archbishop Robert Brennan said in a statement. “Our hearts continue to break for those whose lives were lost that terrible day, and for the innocent hostages still held in captivity in Gaza.”
There will also be pro-Palestinian protests across the city, according to organizers.
It was on October 7, 2023, in the early morning hours, that hundreds of Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel and launched a sneak attack that killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli official figures.
The terrorists also took 251 hostages back to Gaza, some as corpses.
“But the worry of these days is not confined to the Middle East,” Dolan and Brennan said. “Right here in New York and around the globe, we note with great anxiety the troubling rise in antisemitism. Allow us to say unambiguously to our Jewish friends here in New York and around the world that you are not alone.”