Reform and Liberal community members from all over the country came to London for a memorial event in Hyde Park to mark the one-year anniversary of the 7 October terrorist attacks, mourn the victims and call for the return of the hostages still being held by Hamas.
Progressive Judaism Co-Leads Rabbi Josh Levy and Rabbi Charley Baginsky (pictured above) addressed the event, including contributing prayers for the strength to make peace and for the wellbeing and release of hostages. You can read their words in full below this story.
Rabbis Charley and Josh said: “It was a privilege to speak at the memorial. This important event was testament to the resilience of the UK Jewish community and the strength of our ongoing commitment to Israel.”
Around 20,000 people attended the memorial – both members of the UK Jewish community and our friends of all faiths and none – showing unity in the face of hate.
Similar events were also held in Manchester, Leeds, Brighton and elsewhere around the country.
The words of Rabbi Charley Baginsky and Rabbi Josh Levy at the 7 October Memorial Rabbi Josh Levy: The experience of gathering these High Holy Days has been unlike any other, overshadowed by our shared experience of the last year.
As we read our Torah readings for Rosh Hashanah – the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael, we felt more acutely than ever the continuing pain of this age-old conflict.
We pray that all of their descendants find within them the wisdom and strength to seek a peaceful resolution.
As we ask God for this strength to make peace, we recognise that all of us have a part to play in working to honour the words of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav – ‘let all the residents of earth recognise that we are not come into this world for quarrel and division, hate and bloodshed, but to know God’
Rabbi Charley Baginsky: As we read of our father, Abraham, we recognise too that he was the first exemplar of the supreme Jewish value of pidyon sh’vuyim – seeking in his days to release and redeem those in captivity.
Every day since October 7 last year we have held those taken hostage in our hearts, acknowledging the words spoken by Steve Brisley, the brother in law of one of the hostages Eli Sharabi: “We are them and they are us”
How much we are reminded of this hearing Mandy speak of her daughter Emily.
We are them and they are us – this constant challenge to not allow the hostages to be forgotten, to ensure that we remember that each one of their lives is not just words but a whole world, has become a sacred task for all of us.
Rabbi Josh Levy: In a moment we will recite a prayer for guarding, redeeming and freeing the hostages written by Israeli Rabbi, Chen Ben Or Tsfoni.
This prayer is not simply a request of God but a demand of ourselves – a challenge to us not to descend into indifference, to hold on to hope and not despair – that we continue to think of them, work for them, be a source of support for those who yearn for them; and to be a source of hope and vision of a better possible future for all of us.
Rabbi Charley Baginsky: May the One who blessed our ancestors: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Rachel and Leah; may the One who answered Dena in her torture, Joseph in prison, and Daniel in the Lion’s Den. God of Abraham, the first, who was willing to risk his life for the release of prisoners and hostages.
May this God bless the hostages, taken captive by our enemy, and all those missing and unaccounted for: citizens, soldiers, men, women and children who are imprisoned and in grave danger. May it be Your will, God of All, that they be released speedily and returned to our Land, to their families and to their homes, safe and sound in body and in spirit.
Plant the power of hope in the hearts of their loved ones frantic and yearning for their release. Grant wisdom in the hearts of those laboring for their release, and compassion in the hearts of their captors.
May God’s presence spread mercy on them, and save them from trouble to wellbeing, from darkness to light, from enslavement to redemption, may it be swift and soon
As it is written in Jeremiah: Thus said GOD: A cry is heard in Ramah — Wailing, bitter weeping— Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, who are gone. Thus said GOD: Restrain your voice from weeping, Your eyes from shedding tears; For there is a reward for your labor —declares GOD: They shall return from the enemy’s land. And let us say AMEN.