Correction appended: A previous version of this story misspelled Noam Schochet's name.
Monday marks the one-year anniversary of the single deadliest day for Israelis in history. Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killed nearly 1,200 people. It’s a day often referred to as Israel’s version of 9/11. WUFT spoke with members of Gainesville’s Jewish and Israeli communities to find out what the day means to them.
Noam Schochet, student at University of Florida: I was in Israel, in Jerusalem, in the Old City on the day [Oct 7, 2023]. The attacks really stuck with me every day. I mean, it was impossible not to think about it, not to see or be involved with some form of it. We did a lot of volunteer stuff the first couple of months where we were packaging meals, helping families whose dads went off to military service. While I was in Israel, up until I left, which was in the middle of June, it was for sure, like physically real the entire time. And I would say throughout the summer and then being in school now, back in the U.S., it's still very much real. I'm checking the news every day and I still have a bunch of friends there and family that are constantly giving me updates. Especially with new developments every day now, it is very much a daily thing that I think about and am worried about.
Laliv Vinarski, student at University of Florida: I am from Israel. I was actually back in Israel [on Oct 7, 2023]. I think it's something that you can't really let go of, if that makes sense. It's in everything that I do in my life. I've lost friends. That's obviously one very big thing that goes with me everywhere. I can hear a song on the radio and start crying because this is a song that my friend used to like.
Rabbi Jonah Zinn, Executive Director at University of Florida Hillel: For so many of our students, not only was this jarring in that they hadn't experienced a personal communal tragedy like this, but they also hadn't experienced Jewish suffering like this. Certainly they knew about it, right? I think baked into the Jewish experience is that collective memory of suffering that goes back thousands of years, but this personalized it in a different way. I saw all that sort of collective Jewish memory rush forward as students started to grasp what had happened. And they went from sort of being passively engaged in this story to now being like bearers of a new chapter. And that I think was very powerful and also very difficult to witness because you could really see sort of the anguish on their faces.
Jenna Dube, Springboard Fellow at University of Florida Hillel: I went on a trip to Israel that Hillel International put together called Siparim, which means stories in Hebrew and the whole focus was to hear a lot of different stories from survivors and people who were impacted by that day. I went to the sites of October 7. I went to Kfar Aza, which is one of the kibbutzim that was very impacted. I went to the Nova [music festival] site. I also went to some other cities and small towns that were close to the Gaza border and impacted by October 7. I heard a lot of stories and it was honestly an incredibly life-changing opportunity.
Rabbi David Kaiman, Congregation B’Nai Israel: I wish people would understand how it feels in a very small country, in a very small place, when attacks happen at home to people who you know. While I think many people think of these in large global terms, each and every story is a personal story. We have a tremendous amount of pain for the death and the loss on both sides. Our mourning is not just for those who were slaughtered and murdered on the Israeli side, but also on the side of the Palestinians and the Gazans who suffer as well for the actions of those who carried out that tremendous massacre.
Yaniv Feller, Assistant Professor of Religion and Jewish Studies at University of Florida: I wish people would understand just what a profound shock it was for Israelis — a feeling of vulnerability, of not feeling safe and secure. But also in the aftermath, for American Jews and just how their relationship to Israel has suddenly changed.
Linda Maurice, Executive Director of the Jewish Council of North Central Florida: I would love to think that maybe the unfortunate anniversary will bring movement, but that's always a wonderful hope. Right now, we're teetering on the brink of war with Lebanon and potentially the wider Middle East. So, I don't know. If you'd asked me a few weeks ago, I might have said, I hope for peace. Now I'm just worrying about what's going to be on October 7 with what's going on in Israel and Lebanon. I really would love for the hostages to be brought back to Israel, whether alive or dead so their families have closure one way or another. I honestly don't know. I can't tell. I have hopes, but I can't predict. I hope for peace every day, and I hope for a return of the hostages, and peace and healing on all sides.
