By Carl Zebrowski
Editor

“We remember where we were, what we were doing, and a searing sense of loss,” Jeri Zimmerman, executive director of the Jewish Federation, told the hundreds of people gathered in the JCC to commemorate the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on the night of their first anniversary.

U.S. Representative Susan Wild of Pennsylvania’s 7th District said she was encouraged to see the already-large audience continue to grow before the event started. Community members needed the mutual support. “It’s a sad, sad day that all of us have been dreading in a way,” she said. “It’s just hard to believe that we are still waiting for hostages and that they are still there.”

Miriam Zager, one of the three event cochairs, said that coming together on a day like this was essential. “It would be impossible to go through it on our own,” she said. “We really need the whole community to be here, to cry together, pray together, and memorialize all these amazing people that we lost in this horrible war.” Her fellow cochair Naomi Schachter said,   “Without this community, we would have faced this horrible situation in isolation.”

Among the many prayers said during the night was one led by Rabbi Michael Singer of Congregation Brith Sholom. The gathering prayed along with him “for the parents killed hiding their children beneath their bodies” when terrorists invaded their home, “for the innocents dancing their final dance” at the Nova Music Festival when terrorists began their killing spree, and the other victims of the attacks and the aftermath. Singer was among the clergy members of eight Lehigh Valley synagogues that helped organize and participated in the vigil: Chabad of the Lehigh Valley, Congregation Am Haskalah, Congregation Bnai Shalom, Congregation Brith Sholom, Congregation Keneseth Israel, Congregation Sons of Israel, Temple Beth El, and Temple Shirat Shalom.

Survival was a common theme through the night.  “They are waiting to sacrifice you on the altar,” said Rabbi Moshe Re’em of Temple Beth El. “Do not raise your hand.”

Rabbi Allen Juda, retired from Congregation Brith Sholom, reminded the audience about both the threat against the Jews and their resilience against it. “In every generation, they try to destroy us,” he said. “But the people of Israel live.”

A video created for the commemoration by Sally Mitlas, producer and director for Mitlas Productions in Jenkintown, told the audience, “Israel must survive.” To do so, Israel must adjust its value of tikkun olam, or repairing the world, to make it “tikkun Israel”—for now. “How can we heal anyone if we ourselves are broken?” the narrative continued.

Mitlas also sang. One of the songs was written by Naomi Shemer (1930-2004), an Israeli musician and songwriter who wrote “Al Kol Eleh” (“For All These Things”), which became a symbol for the opposition to Israel’s withdrawing from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in 1979-1982. “‘Al Kol Eleh’ could apply to what we’re going through now,” Mitlas said, referring to the song’s take-the-good-with-the-bad lyric “Every bee that brings the honey / Needs a sting to be complete.”

Tama Tamarkin, the event’s other cochair, talked to the crowd about the post-10/7 situation that the Jewish community continues to face. “We all tried to make sense of the unimaginable,” she said. “It has become our new normal, yet we are charged with the task of moving forward. Hope is mandatory.”

Jeri Zimmerman said, “There will be a time for healing and rebuilding, hopefully speedily.”