Two years have now passed since the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel on October 7, 2023. The deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, it was a moment that ruptured not only Israeli society but the broader Jewish world in the diaspora. Secular and religious Jews alike felt a trauma that was immediate and remains enduring. It felt then, and continues to feel now, like a member of our own family was taken hostage or killed.
The fate of our hostages has become not just a national trauma but a global one. In New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and Buenos Aires, Jewish communities will gather for vigils, raising attention once again to the faces of those languishing in Hamas’ dungeons that the world must not forget.
But there is a wider truth here, one that extends beyond the Jewish story.
Humanity itself is diminished when civilians are held as bargaining chips, when children are forced to grow up in a war zone, and when life is treated as expendable. Palestinians, too, deserve freedom from Hamas’ grip, not conscripted as cannon fodder for a terrorist organization.
Commemorating October 7 is not only about what happened on that day and in the more than seven hundred that have followed. It’s about what must happen next. For Israelis, for Jews in the diaspora, and for anyone who still believes that human life has intrinsic worth, the return of the hostages is the most essential first step. Without it, anniversaries will remain only as markers of grief. And the hard part is still to come after this happens and the war ends.
Jews changed as a result of October 7, forever. There will only now be a before and an after. The work of healing will be long. It will require courage, compromise, and imagination. But it cannot begin until the chains of captivity are broken and every Jew stolen from their homeland on October 7, 2023, walks free once again. Only then will our people begin the slow and difficult work of turning trauma into memory and memory into building a better future.
