Days after the devastating terrorist attacks in Israel, about 800 people gathered at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue (SWFS) on the Upper West Side Wednesday for a communal gathering in unwavering solidarity to comfort each other and demand justice.
On Oct. 7, the militant terror group Hamas shocked Israel and the world when it invaded Israeli towns, kidnapping and killing unassuming Israelis celebrating Simchat Torah and firing a barrage of rockets at Israeli cities.
So far, more than 1,300 people have been killed, and another 3,300 injured. Some 200 Jews, including children and 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Yaffa Adar, were captured by Hamas terrorists and taken to the Gaza Strip.
The bloodshed hit close to home for many in New York City, which has the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel.
In his address to the congregation, SWFS Senior Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch said it was a “sad, devastating week for the Jewish people and all decent people who value life.”
“We lost more Jews in one day this week, the Shabbat of Simchat Torah, than any other time since the Holocaust,” Hirsch said. “On no day, from the end of World War II, have more Jews been murdered. Jewish history will remember this week forever.”
Hirsch compared the massacre on Oct. 7 to Kristallnacht in November 1938, when Nazis destroyed synagogues and Jewish businesses around Germany; some 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
“We saw in vivid reality what a pogrom looks like,” Hirsch said. “Mass mayhem and murder. Make no mistake, Israeli civilians were massacred because they were Jews.”
Hirsch said the days of murdering and massacring Jews without consequences were over. Since the attack, Israel has been intensifying its response after the terrorist attacks, preparing for a ground assault in Gaza.
“We will be masters of our own fate,” Hirsch said.
Addressing non-Jews, Hirsch asked them if they knew what Saturday’s massacre,…
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