Around the globe, Jews and allies gathered in hundreds of events to commemorate the first anniversary of October 7th. On the Virginia Peninsula, hundreds of people gathered on the UJCVP campus to honor and remember those killed in Israel one year ago. The event included speakers from the Jewish community, elected officials from Virginia, Jewish and non-Jewish clergy, and represented a broad spectrum of the Virginia Peninsula.
“We come together and we find strength and resilience in one another and it’s precisely at moments like this that we need to be together in community,” said Eric Maurer, CEO of the UJCVP. Amid this terrible year, we have witnessed remarkable reservoirs of generosity, courage and unity. Look at what we’ve done by refusing to back down, by standing up for our pride in being Jewish. We’ve found new strength in our collective action.”
“My prayer is simple,” shared Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones. “I pray that God will continue to be a sword and a shield for Israel in her darkest hour since the Holocaust. And I pray that God will continue to stretch out his hand over the IDF, as well as the American forces.”
Attorney General Jason Miyares reflected on his 48-hour visit to Israel last November, when he visited Kibbutz Be’eri and how he could still “smell death.” He shared the grim sight of a bedroom where a young girl was murdered and the moral contrast of what he was seeing in America. “I look up at a television screen and see young American college students waving Hamas flags and shouting Hamas slogans. It was utterly shattering in many ways. At a time when we needed desperately moral clarity, I felt indeed I was seeing utter, complete moral confusion. I truly believe that October 7 and its response is the starkest moral test of our time and its incumbent on all of us to pass that test.”
Congressman Bobby Scott expressed alarm over the recent ballistic missile attacks launched by Iran, his fear of the dangerous escalation of violence and his pride that the United States assisted Israel in its defense. “The Biden Administration must keep working with Israel to stop Iran’s lawless aggression through its proxies and its dangerous escalation of regional hostilities. I support the administration’s efforts to limit further escalation in the region and we must continue to support Israel as it guards against additional attacks and work to bring the hostages home.”
IDF Major Shay Levy, the TRADOC Liaison Officer stationed at Fort Eustis, spoke about his experience serving in Gaza. He described not being able to stay in the United States when his country needed him after October 7th. He flew to Israel two weeks after the attack to serve in the combat engineering unit that worked on destroying tunnels. His urgency to serve his country wasn’t limited to him – but all of Israel. “My seargeant in the reserve unit in Gaza was 75 years old. But it just explains the Israeli spirit!”
Rami Feinstein, an accomplished Israeli singer-songwriter, joined the event and shared several original pieces he wrote after October 7. Between songs, Feinstein shared the excruciating pain he felt when he learned Israel hostage Yotam Haim, 28, brother of Feinstein’s longtime drummer in Tel Aviv, Tuval Haim, had been killed. “It was devastating news,” Feinstein said. “I’ve been very vocal, campaigning to get him home. I know the family pretty well. They were so close. Yotam was a drummer as well. All the music community in Israel is heartbroken. We all know who’s to blame, and that’s the people that kidnapped him in the first place, and soldiers are fighting in impossible conditions to make sure that this will never happen again.”
“I can only imagine the shock and pain you experienced on that horrific day last year and the visceral and continuing body blow of being under attack from enemies and as we’ve heard by supposed friends,” shared the Rev. Lisa Green, St. Martin’s Episcopal Church. “I want you to know that you are not alone. You are not alone in your grief. You are not alone in empathy, however clumsily we may be sharing that. You are not alone in your love for your people, for your prayer, your holidays, your beautiful worship space, the breadth of your vision and your dream for this world, for mending it.”
Rabbi David Katz of Temple Beth El in Williamsburg shared a prayer of gratitude, reflecting on the blessings experienced this past year. “We say thank you to our friends who have stood by the Jewish community - those that have recognized that what happens to one Jew happens to us all. Those who have seen what has changed for American Jews in the last year. Those who recognized our pain, our anguish, our devastation and our insecurity. And who don’t tell us how to be, but who instead show up and stand next to us and say I’m sorry and ask how they can help.”
The commemoration concluded with the singing of Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, led by Congregation Emet V’Or’s cantorial soloist Jonathan Rathsam.