The Canadian Jewish News remembers October 7
As details from the Hamas attack on Israel flooded in over a long holiday weekend, the news was difficult to process. Each media report, video and witness account was increasingly disturbing. The gruesome details, the barbaric acts, the absolute hatred and violence was overwhelming. And while we were trying to comprehend the facts—for many of us, our thoughts turned to loved ones in Israel.
In the weeks that followed, Jews were further unnerved at how most mainstream media quickly set their gaze on Israel— and Jews along with it—when it became clear retaliation against Hamas was inevitable.
We understood that antisemitism quietly festered, and occasionally surfaced in Canada. But it wasn’t until we witnessed the incessant protests,
the silencing of students, the threats, and actual violence towards Jewish Canadians that we realized how widespread antisemitism and anti-Zionism is across the country.
Over the past year, The CJN has worked diligently to provide balanced and insightful reporting on news impacting Jewish Canadians in Canada and abroad. To commemorate the tragic events of Oct. 7, it was important for us to republish some of the key news stories that appeared on our news website in the past year.
In the pages that follow, we remember eight individuals whose lives were tragically cut short on Oct. 7. We share excerpts of news and images from the past year about Jews across Canada and in Israel. We also look ahead to initiatives that are being planned to commemorate the tragedy.
In the past 65 years, The Canadian Jewish News has provided the community with insight into the pressing issues impacting Jewish Canadians from coast to coast. This edition is but a snapshot of the year that was. As our community comes together this Oct. 7, we encourage you to have open and honest conversations with your family and friends about what has transpired, how the community has been impacted, and the challenges that Jewish people continue to face in Canada and abroad.
Michael Weisdorf Chief Executive Officer
The Canadian Jewish News
Adi Vital-Kaploun
Alexandre Look
Netta Epstein Shir Georgy
Judih Weinstein Haggai
Vivian Silver
Ben Mizrachi
Tiferet Lapidot
We incrementally learned about the immensity of the terror attack in Israel on Oct. 7. First, there were scattered reports about an attack on a music festival, a kibbutz, an army post. But within a day, the picture began to emerge of what would be the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and the catastrophic failure of the Israeli intelligence network.
Meanwhile in Canada, two things were becoming apparent. It wasn’t long before we saw an unprecedented wave of antisemitism, accompanied by a hatred of Jews and Zionists, that continues to rage. At the same time, there was a surge of activism that galvanized tens of thousands of Canadian Jews to turn up at rallies and protests, highlighting the plight of the hostages in Gaza and supporting Israel.
Oct. 7 has become an indelible line, dividing life in Israel and the Jewish Diaspora into “before” and “after”. At The
CJN, nearly every story we have written in the past year has been influenced by the events of Oct. 7 and what followed.
We know this is likely the most important moment we will ever cover.
Our news team immediately realized that we couldn’t compete with the 24-hour news networks and the international newspapers. Instead, we decided to focus on two things that we do best: We can tell the stories that other media outlets overlook: the personal, intimate stories that are of vital importance to the Canadian Jewish community. And we can cover the same story that everyone else is covering, but bring a nuanced understanding as a news outlet with a 65-year legacy. Jewish life in Canada is our beat and we have the contacts, the relationships and the deep knowledge that no one else brings to the table.
In short, we can tell different stories—and we can tell the
same story differently.
For the past year, those two principles have guided us when we decide what stories we cover, what columns we publish and how we communicate it all to our listeners and readers. This special edition reflects those efforts.
During the first week, as the horrors and failures of Oct. 7 began to take shape, we wrote about the Israeli-Canadians who had died and those who were missing. Although their deaths were an important part of the story, we also tried to focus on how they lived.
We also asked Canadians in Israel to be our eyes on the ground, and we published a series of first-person columns about what it was like to have to run to an air-raid shelter, or learn that a child in your own kid’s school had been taken hostage.
We have covered Jews and their allies who leapt into action to send supplies to Israel, flew back to join the
IDF or volunteered, prayed, lit candles, and protested.
The Jewish community is not monolithic. There is a healthy diversity of opinion about everything from the situation in Israel to how pro- and anti-Israel protests should be managed here. Our journalism has given voice to a wider range of opinions than ever before. It has been a year of tremendous heartbreak. It has also been a year of surprising activism.
These pages portray the vital journalism we do to connect Jewish Canadians as we continue to navigate the world after Oct. 7.
Lila Sarick News Editor thecjn.ca/news
NNetta Epstein, 21, Kibbutz Kfar Aza
“He was like the wild one and he always had a big smile on his face. He always wanted to play and was very active, friendly, outgoing and funny,” said Netta’s camp counsellor. “That only continued, but was matched with added maturity as he grew older.” Oct.
etta Epstein was killed when he threw himself on a grenade, protecting his fiancée who was hiding with him in a safe room in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. He had finished his service in the IDF in August 2023, and was sheltering with Irene Shavit when terrorists burst through, throwing grenades and firing guns. His grandmother and uncle had already been killed in the attack. His mother, who was sheltering elsewhere on the kibbutz, had texted him the tragic news. Epstein leapt on the grenade, and was also shot. Irene hid under a bed behind his body for hours until she was rescued.
“Without hesitation, Netta jumped to shield his loved one with his own body. He saved her life and sacrificed his. Their future dreams, including marriage, were abruptly and tragically cut short,” said a post on social media from the Israeli Consulate in Toronto,
confirming his death. The young couple were to have been married this April. Epstein’s grandmother was originally from Montreal and family members from Canada were expected to attend.
Epstein was a talented soccer player, who volunteered for youth with special needs when he finished high school, his mother Ayelet Shachar-Epstein said.
“He really found himself there. It wasn’t an easy task at all,” she said. “He needed to really collect himself and be very strong to do what he did there. He was there for them. He had fun with them. He played soccer with them. He would read them bedtime stories. They loved him dearly.”
As a high school student, in 2018, he was a leader in a youth-led demonstration that saw thousands of young people from communities around Gaza march to the Knesset, demand-
ing enhanced security measures for residents.
Epstein, who was 17 at the time, told Yediot Achronot, “We felt an outpouring of support from youth across the country. It demonstrates the unity and solidarity among us young people, and reassures us that we can rely on each other.”
In an interview with the Minneapolis website TC Jewfolk, he also spoke about the protest.
“Since I was born, since everyone on this trip was born, we have rockets. Last year, we got the [incendiary] kites. And like, this is our life, this is how we live. And it’s really not okay. This has to change right now.”
He attended Camp Herzl in Wisconsin in 2014 with a group of campers from Sderot, in southern Israel and returned in 2015 and 2016 and then in 2018 as a counsellor-in-training.
Samantha Agranoff, who had been his counsellor at camp, remembered his exuberance.
Shir
Georgy, 22, Rishon LeZion
Shir
Georgy was killed at the Nova music festival.
She was initially feared to have been kidnapped by Hamas when terrorists overran the festival, but after several days, her body was identified by her family.
Georgy called her parents that morning to let them know she found refuge in a bomb shelter and not to worry.
A short video taken on someone else’s phone showed her huddled in a bomb shelter with others at the festival, but for days her family did not know what had happened to her.
“The last they heard of her is that she was in a safe room with the security of the party and with cops not knowing the extent and the horrible actions that were going to take place there. They’re used to rockets sadly, they’re used to this, but never, never to
this extent,” Sivane Dahan, Georgy’s cousin, told Toronto-based Global News reporter Caryn Lieberman.
She had just completed a lengthy post-army trip across South America with friends before she came home for the High Holidays and went to the concert.
printed on stickers they pasted around Israel after her death:
Tiferet Lapidot, 23, Harish
“Shir was the light of her house. She was a sweet, gentle, amazing girl that always loved and respected everybody around her.
She loved to live,” said her cousin.
Georgy was a Canadian-Israeli citizen, as her mother was originally from Montreal.
On a memorial Instagram account, her mother commented, “Shir wanted to fall in love, have at least six children and be a film scriptwriter.”
She served in the IDF in combat service and was “appreciated by her commander and is an inspiration to her soldiers,” her family wrote.
The grid of photographs features an exuberant young woman dancing, singing, surfing and surrounded by friends.
On a picture of Georgy skydiving, her mother wrote, “She was brave and fearless.”
She had a lighthouse tattooed on her arm, corresponding to a quote many of her friends attributed to her—and even
“Be sure to always keep your light bright and shining. You never know just how many people you may be a lighthouse for. You never know how many people find their way home in even the wildest storms, because you are there.”
Her family has started a campaign to raise funds for a Torah to be written in her memory.
“Shir was a girl with a radiant smile, kind, smart, brave and loved very much by all her many friends.”
Tiferet Lapidot was killed at the Nova music festival.
She grew up in northern Israel, in an Orthodox family where she was the second of seven children.
After high school, Lapidot spent two years doing national service working with children with special needs.
Then, like many young Israelis, she travelled the world, visiting India, Thailand and Australia. She had been teaching children in South Africa before she returned to Israel to be with her family for the High Holidays.
She was planning to return to Australia and also visit Canada, but first she decided to go to the music festival, and celebrate her 23rd birthday.
“She was a great listener and she was so funny.
She lit up the room when she was entering.
She’s wonderful,” said her aunt.
Pictures show her always surrounded by friends, Galit Goren said. “She’s magic.”
Lapidot managed to make one last phone call home to her mother, while she was hiding in the bushes from the terrorists, asking her what to do. But after that, the family heard nothing. They feared she was among the kidnapped Israelis and foreign tourists
taken hostage in Gaza.
In an interview, her father Ohad Lapidot grieved that as a parent he was unable to save his child.
“The world needed her light, it needed her big smile and her big heart for caring for other people,” he said.
On Oct. 18, the family learned their daughter was among the more than 360 partygoers who died that day.
Tiferet’s parents, grandparents and extended family were all Canadian citizens, growing up in Calgary and Regina before moving to Israel in the 1970s. They had appealed to the Canadian government to help her when they believed she was a hostage.
Ultimately, because she would have been eligible for citizenship, if she had applied, the Canadian govern-
ment recognized her as a Canadian victim of the Oct. 7 attacks.
Alexandre Look, 33, Montreal
Alexandre Look was described as a hero and a proud Zionist, who died protecting others. He was visiting friends in Israel over the holidays when he was killed in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack at the Nova music festival.
“As we all know now, my Coco was one-of-a-kind, generous, brave and awesome. I wish for just once he would have been less of a hero. We still had so much more living to do,” his father Alain said at his funeral in Montreal on Oct. 26. The funeral chapel was packed with mourners, while another 500 people watched online.
“Israel failed him and so many others on that Black Saturday. We must stand united. We are one. Bad things only happen to us when we are divided.”
During the Hamas attack,
Look escaped to a bomb shelter with several other festival goers, but the shelter did not have a door. He shielded others from gunfire during the attack, mourners heard.
Look’s family later heard from two women who were in the bomb shelter that Alexandre had saved their lives.
“I can take solace that he lived his life on his own terms and chose to die on his own terms as well,” his father said.
“Like a true warrior, he went out like a hero, trying to protect the people he was with,” said his father.
“Alex was a force of nature, endowed with a unique charisma and unparalleled generosity. The world will never be the same without you.”
At the funeral, Israeli Consul General Paul Hirschson addressed parents Alain and Raquel Ohnona and sister Kayla, saying, “I’m sorry we couldn’t protect your boy and his friends.”
Hirschson described visiting the family after Alexandre’s death. “I made you one promise, we would bring him home. Alex is home.”
Alexandre had started a cos-
metics business using products from the Dead Sea, and was living and working in Cabo, Mexico. He hosted large Passover seders with the help of his mother, and her cooking and would never turn anyone away from the table, said Yair Szlak, CEO of Federation CJA Montreal.
“He was a larger-than-life character and he represented the best of what our community is—a proud Jew, a Zionist, an entrepreneur,” Szlak said at the funeral.
“He defined his success by his generosity, not by the money he had.”
Alexandre “loved Israel deeply” and was planning on making aliyah.
“Alex had some great nicknames: The Legend, the King of Cabo, Coco—but I’d like to add Gibor Yisrael, a hero of Israel.”
Ben Mizrachi, 22, Kibbutz Yavne
Bis remembered as a bright, joyful and compassionate young person whose life ended far too soon.
“Ben was one of those kids with a big smile and a wonderful heart. He was a centerpiece that made everyone around him smile,” said Russ Klein, head of school at Vancouver’s King David High School, from which Mizrachi graduated in 2018.
He had been at the Nova music festival when Hamas attacked. In the panic and chaos that ensued, he reportedly used his experience as a medic with the Israeli Defense Forces to tend to those who had been injured before himself becoming the victim of violence.
Mizrachi made aliyah in the summer following his high school graduation. In 2019, he was drafted into the IDF—an event, Klein noted, of which his former pupil was immensely proud.
Itamar Kaufman first met Miz-
rachi in Israel when they were both 18 and the two quickly became close friends.
“He straight away became part of our Jerusalem group of friends and a regular visitor to all of our homes. He was always the first one to start a dance. He could connect with anyone—no matter what age or background.
He was all of our parents’ favorite friend. And was a son every parent could only dream about,” Kaufman said.
Mizrachi also became part of Kibbutz Yavne where, according to Kaufman, he was taken in by a family who had spent a few years living in Vancouver. This family promised “to be his family in Israel when he came to serve in the paratroopers brigade just as his father had done.”
“As time went by,” Kaufman said, “we all discovered the leader in him—organizing many of our social activities and leading many volunteering activities.”
Mizrachi’s military service
ended in April 2022, and for the next year he worked in the kibbutz fields and travelled through South America. Before his death, he had been working for his uncle’s construction company and had plans to become a real estate developer.
Mizrachi had moved into an apartment with both of his sisters who were living in Israel as well.
“He felt it was his duty to give them a home and a sense of family in Israel. This tells you a little bit about the family man he was—a devoted son to his parents and a loving older brother to his sisters and younger brother,” Kaufman said. McGill University professor Gil Troy knew Mizrachi while he was in Israel. “When you have four children, you end up meeting lots of kids, but not bonding deeply with all of them,” he said. “But it was impossible not to bond with Ben, who just had an infectious smile and love of life.”
“I remember that year marveling at how Ben loved unleashing his inner Israeli. He loved the camaraderie, the endless shmoozing, the constant barbecuing and he was indeed quite the chef. It’s heartbreaking that his life in Israel, which he loved so much, was cut short so soon—and so cruelly,” said Prof. Gil Troy.
en Mizrachi
Vivian Silver, 74, Kibbutz Be’eri
Vivian Silver’s family and friends believed for more than five weeks that the Israeli-Canadian peace-activist originally from Winnipeg, was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists from her home on Kibbutz Be’eri on the morning of Oct. 7.
But on Nov. 13, her family in Canada was informed that she had been murdered the day of the barbaric attack.
Silver moved to Israel from Canada in the 1970s and raised a family with her late husband Lewis Zeigen. Her life was devoted to working for peace between Israel and the Palestinians: among other causes, she was known for regularly driving patients from Gaza to medical appointments inside Israel.
In 1998, she became the executive director of the Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development, an organization based in Beersheva, dedicated to promoting shared society between Jews and Arabs.
Silver also organized Friday afternoon meetings between the kibbutz members, who would gather in a field to speak on the phone, with Palestinians in Gaza. For several years, she was in charge of building construction on the kibbutz, which employed Arab workers. Once, when the workers were not permitted to enter Israel, Silver drove to the border crossing to ensure they received the wages owed to them, recalled her friend Michael Mitchell, who had grown up with Silver in Winnipeg. At a memorial service in
her Canadian hometown in December, Silver’s son Chen Zeigen, an archeologist, spoke about his mother’s impact:
“Since Oct. 7, we’ve witnessed the rapid transformation of our mother into a symbol.
“Her political legacy has undoubtedly touched the hearts of many. We’ve always been proud and respectful of Vivian Silver the public figure, awestruck by her unwavering struggle for a better world, and her inspiring achievements. But for us, she will always remain a loving mother and grandmother.
“She would march for causes and tuck us into bed at night. She would arrange encounter groups between Israelis and Palestinians in the morning and enquire about our feelings after we came home from school. She would orchestrate international peace rallies during the week and bake elaborate cakes for her grandchildren’s birthdays.”
“She was a woman of the world, but she had unbendable rules in her family, friendships and community,” said her son.
“Growing up it was made clear to us that family is important, and that sheer distance should not act as an obstacle to maintaining strong ties with close and extended family alike.”
In 2014, Silver retired, became a grandmother for the first time, and engaged in some soul-searching that she wrote about in a blog post in 2018.
“I had to acknowledge that after 40 years of peace activism, the left, of which I was a proud member, had not succeeded in achieving its goal of ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
She became deeply involved in Women Wage Peace, a grassroots effort that united women from diverse Israeli communities to lobby politicians for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
“I have basically lived and breathed the movement night and day,” Silver wrote. “Living on the border of the Gaza Strip is a compelling factor for me. I am driven by the intense desire for security and a life of mutual respect and freedom for both our peoples.
“The thought of yet another war drives me mad. Like the last three, it will not solve the conflict. It will only bring more dead and wounded.”
AAdi Vital-Kaploun, 33, Kibbutz Holit
di Vital-Kaploun, was a devoted mother of two young children, with a successful career in cybersecurity when she was murdered at her home.
A Canadian citizen, with deep ties to an extended family in Ottawa, Vital-Kaploun was raised in Israel.
“Adi brought love, laughter and a sense of purpose to her parents and siblings, the one always leading the way in a very close family,” read an official statement.
“Her children are miraculously home safe, but she is not.”
“She was murdered by terrorists in her home, just for being Jewish.”
“Adi was an amazing woman with so many talents. She expressed herself through her dance, playing saxophone and was an amazing basketball player. Adi was driven from a young age on a path to success in everything she set her mind to, having recently completing her master’s after completing a degree in chemical engineering,” the family’s statement said.
Vital-Kaploun’s husband was away the morning of the terrorist attack and she called him to find out where his gun was stored in the house and how to use it.
She killed at least one attacker, while her children hid in the safe room. She also texted her father, who was sheltering elsewhere
on the kibbutz, and warned him not to come to her house.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, Avital Aladjem described how she was hiding in a closet in her house on the kibbutz and texting with Vital-Kaploun, when the terrorists entered her home and killed a man Aladjem had been hiding with.
Aladjem was dragged out of her hiding place and the terrorists then brought Vital-Kaploun’s two children, Eshel, 4 months old, and 4-year-old Negev to her and started to march the three of them toward Gaza.
Negev had been shot in the foot and one of the terrorists was carrying him, she said.
Once the three captives crossed into Gaza, the terrorists unexpectedly left them and Aladjem turned around and carried the children back to the kibbutz, hiding behind a sand dune at one point to avoid other Hamas forces.
The children were safely reunited with their father, but Aladjem said she never saw
their mother.
“Adi’s family was willing to have me share their story so that you can have a face of one of those 1,100 families who are in pain, who are shattered, all because of the terrorist entity Hamas,” said Andrea Freedman, the now-former CEO of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa.
“We hear 1,100 Israelis were brutally murdered and we don’t know any of their names. We have trouble seeing their faces. We have trouble remembering that all of these people murdered were somebody’s child, they were somebody’s mother, they were somebody’s father. They have friends and family who are in deep, deep mourning today.”
Judih Weinstein Haggai, 70, Kibbutz Nir Oz
IDF soldier Yonadav Levenstein, 23, Ma’ale Adumim
A number of Canadian-Israeli soldiers have died in the war with Hamas since Oct. 7. At least one, Ben Brown of Thornhill, Ont., has suffered a serious injury and is still recovering in hospital at press time.
Yonadav Levenstein, a soldier with the Givati Brigade, died in battle in northern Gaza, the IDF announced on Nov. 4.
J
udih Weinstein Haggai was confirmed dead on Dec. 28, according to a statement from the kibbutz where she and her husband Gadi lived.
For 12 weeks, her family had hoped she was alive and being held hostage in Gaza.
“My parents had the life we all strive for. My dad would wake up very early, my mom would wake up a little after him. The first thing she would do is write a haiku on her Facebook and then she would join him. They would do meditation, drink their coffee and go out for their morning walk,” their daughter Iris Weinstein Haggai said:
“Material things never meant anything to my parents,” said daughter Iris.
“They were just striving to feel happy and live their day as if it was their last.”
The couple was on a walk on the morning of Oct. 7 when the Hamas attacks began in southern Israel. Kibbutz Nir Oz is located about three kilometres from the Gaza border.
Iris saw there was a red alert on the kibbutz and called her mother, expecting to hear that she was on her way home. Instead, she learned her parents were lying face down in a field as hundreds of rockets streamed overhead.
“Judih was an English teacher, who specialized in teaching children with special needs,” read the statement from a Nir Oz spokesperson. “For the past few years she has also taught mindfulness to children and teenagers who suffered from anxiety caused by the ongoing rocket fire from Gaza.”
Born in New York state, Weinstein moved with her family to Toronto when she was two years old, and lived in the city for 22 years. She travelled to Israel in the 1970s, where she worked on a kibbutz and met her husband Gadi, who was a jazz musician. She held triple citizenship as an Israeli-American-Canadian, while her husband was an Israeli-American dual national.
The couple leave behind two daughters, two sons, and seven grandchildren.
Judih’s brother, Larry Wein-
Judih called the paramedic station on the kibbutz and said her husband had been shot in the head by terrorists and that she had been shot as well. Their bodies were taken to Gaza, and have not been released to their family for a burial in Israel.
stein, a documentary filmmaker who lives in Toronto, told The CJN that his sister was a completely non-violent person.
“She embraced humanity. In some ways, she was like an original hippie, a flower child. She loved music and she loved poetry. She wrote haiku, created puppets and taught mindfulness.”
Judih even taught meditation techniques to children in safe rooms so that they would get over trauma, Larry Weinstein said.
“She had classes for Palestinian and Israeli children together because she believed in cooperation. She was somebody who believed in peace. And she actually lived so close to the border of Gaza that she felt a tremendous empathy for her Palestinian neighbours. She didn’t like where the politics of Israel were going.”
“He was a very kind, very sweet guy. He was amazing with all of his nieces and nephews,” recalled his cousin, Eli Lesser, in Toronto. “He was very smart, very musical, he played lots of different instruments.”
Levenstein was born and raised in Israel, but he and his family came often to visit their cousins and grandparents in Canada. His mother Leora grew up in Montreal, and she met his late father in Israel: Dr. Michael Levenstein was originally from Toronto. The family live in Ma’ale Adumim, a suburb of Jerusalem.
The youngest of six children, Yonadav was married just two months before he was killed. He was supposed to have completed his army service in December, and the newlywed couple had plans to travel around the world, Lesser said.
After high school, he worked on archeological digs in the City of David, part of the ancient city of Jerusalem.
“He had a lot of talents and strengths… and one of them was certainly history and archeology and the history of Israel,” Lesser said.
His supervisor at the City of David project, Kobi Gur Aryeh, commented on Facebook, “I remember one time there was a task that involved many hours of carrying and physical effort, Yonadav was the first to volunteer, without complaints and without questions, he immediately showed up.”
Lesser recalled. The family has a video of him doing a rendition of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” simultaneously playing piano and harmonica.
Levenstein reported for combat on Oct. 7 and fought in Kibbutz Nir Oz, in southern Israel, against Hamas, Col. Guy Biton said at his funeral, reported Israel Hayom.
“He was a charm of a guy,” said his archeological dig supervisor.
“We called him ‘Gulliver’ both because of his height and because he had a huge heart.”
Levenstein was athletic and a good basketball player, as well as a talented musician who played several instruments,
“You were a professional and skilled fighter. You fought bravely with your friends,” Biton said. “You fought (in) Nir Oz against hundreds of terrorists, saving dozens of civilians. Yesterday, you were hit by terrorist fire and fell. Yonadav, the Viking of the cruiser. I promise you that we will restore security to the citizens of Israel.”
Turning to Levenstein’s young widow, Biton said, “Dear Hadar, continue Yonadav’s dream of establishing a Jewish home of values in the Holy Land. There is no consolation in words in the face of the grief and bereavement that has befallen you. The only consolation is that we will defeat our enemies.”
El Natan Levenstein, one of Yonadav’s brothers, also remembered his youngest sibling at his funeral on Nov. 5.
“My little brother, you were a giant in your personality and size. There’s no book you haven’t read and there’s no musical instrument you didn’t know how to play. There is no trail in the country that you have not hiked. You stood out wherever you were,” he said. El Natan then turned to the ongoing war and addressed the Israeli prime minister and defence minister and said, “This war should be the last. We did not choose this war. The war was forced upon us and it must be ended once and for all. We paid the price. Now it needs to be finished for the fallen and future generations. If you are unable to finish the task, vacate your seat.”
Communities taking to the streets in support of Israel with calls to free the hostages
Montreal. Nov. 2, 2023.
Toronto. Oct. 30, 2023.
Toronto. March 7, 2024.
Toronto. Jan. 14, 2024.
Toronto. March 7, 2024.
Vancouver. Nov. 7, 2023.
Jonathan Rothman; Lila Sarick
Lila Sarick
Dec. 4, 2023: A national rally
calling to release hostages also stood up to antisemitism
Thousands of Canadians packed a snowy Parliament Hill to support the Jewish people and Israel and call out rising antisemitism and hate directed at Jewish Canadian communities.
Police estimated about 20,000 people attended the Ottawa event, according to a spokesperson for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, one of the agencies that organized the rally.
Speakers included Holocaust survivor Nate Leipciger, prominent rabbis, Jewish MPs Melissa Lantsman and Anthony Housefather, Israeli Ambassador to Canada Iddo Moed, and several of social media’s most prominent younger Jewish female voices: Canadian-Moroccan lawyer and educator Ysabella Hazan, Ethiopian-Israeli activist Ashager Araro, and American-Israeli personality Lizzy Savetsky.
Several non-Jewish allies also spoke at the rally, including MPs Michelle Rempel Garner and Marco Mendicino, former Montreal mayor Denis Coderre, and political commentator Rex Murphy (who died on May 9). The latter two speakers expressed admiration for and solidarity with the crowd, including the words “today I am a Jew” in their remarks.
Families of those held hostage in Israel, or who were killed Oct. 7 in the Hamas attacks, also spoke at the rally, including Raquel Look, the mother of Al-
exandre Look, who died in the Nova music festival massacre.
“I implore our leaders to support Israel in its mission to destroy Hamas. To seek the immediate release of our hostages, and to restore peace to the region for all people in order to free Israelis and Gazans from terrorism,” she said.
“Please let our son’s sacrifice not be in vain. Please let us honour his memory by standing up against the forces that seek to destroy the Jewish and Canadian values we hold so dear.
years. We as people of Israel and from Canada and the United States and all the other free nations must fight them together.”
One of the non-Jewish speakers at the rally, Caroline “Pizza Girl” D’Amore, is a California-based pizza-sauce business owner whose social media profile has risen after calling out antisemitism online.
people speaking up.”
The unexpected non-appearance of 17 buses on the morning of the rally left UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, which hired the buses to transport more than 350 Toronto university and high school students, scrambling to find alternate transportation.
who says it was worth it to attend “just to feel the energy” at the rally. A shofar was blown at the start of the program, which included music from Israeli Mizrachi singer Avi Peretz and Cantor Daniel Benlolo, of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Montreal.
all of us,” said an attendee from Toronto. “And anytime that we can get together with other Jewish people, we get strength from them and hopefully we’re giving strength to them as well. For us, this is the place to be.”
Ohad Lapidot, the Canadian father of Tiferet Lapidot, who also died in the Nova festival attack, said his daughter “grabbed life with both hands.”
“Our family is determined to keep living 10 times more, and the Jewish community in Canada [is the same way]. The
“Together as Canadians let’s send a powerful message that we will never tolerate terror. We will not allow Jew hatred to foster in our society. And that we will work tirelessly for a world where every life is valued and every person can live without fear. We will continue to speak up and rally against injustice. May we find strength, unity and peace.”
struggle that we fight today is the most justified fight ever.
“In a few days, we will light the Hanukkah candles. Those candles and the Jewish determination will expel the darkness,” he said.
Another speaker, Nate Leipciger, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor, said the show of unity is what matters most.
“We are here together, and we are expressing our indignation… because the world does not realize that Hamas intends to destroy not only the Jewish state, but all the Western culture that has existed for thousands of
“There are not enough people speaking up for the Jewish community,” D’Amore told the crowd. Several of the loudest cheers of the day came after such expressions of support from the non-Jewish speakers.
“The people in Israel, murdered, and then the reaction is for people to harass Jewish people in the streets and on college campuses? Are you kidding me? And so many people are silent. This is not about being Jewish for me, obviously. It’s about being human.
“When I received thousands upon thousands of messages of gratitude, I realized it’s because there’s not enough non-Jewish
UJA of Greater Toronto, which was one of the Jewish federations that organized the rally, says that the lack of communication from the bus company subcontracted to provide the buses together with the sudden cancellation led them to believe it was an antisemitic act. (UJA subsequently pursued legal action against the companies involved.)
At the rally, placards and signs called for the safe return of the remaining hostages, an end to antisemitism, protection for Canadian Jews, and a firm position against Hamas terrorism. Many who attended the rally came from Toronto, Montreal or were local to Ottawa. The CJN spoke with attendees including Ruthy Schvalbe from Toronto,
“I was a little bit nervous. It’s nerve-wracking in general to be a minority in the world and then to be exposed as a minority in the world, like downtown in a major city, and then to come together, with our flags (and) stand hand-in-hand against antisemitism, against hate, against prejudice, and to do that as a community with prayer, with song, with tears, it was incredible.”
“The last number of weeks have been very alarming and frightening for
Jonathan Rothman
Irv Osterer
Nov. 3, 2023: A note from a student nurse in Jerusalem
The CJN published several firstperson stories from Canadians who were living in or visiting Israel. There were dispatches from people who volunteered to make sandwiches, pick fruit in the fields or staff a mobile BBQ truck. The CJN also featured stories from journalists who contemplated returning to Canada and how the war was affecting their children.
This column is by Tamar Ellis who was born in Israel and grew up in Halifax. After high school, she did national service (sherut leumi) in a delivery room in Jerusalem.
She received a degree in kinesiology from Dalhousie University and worked for three years in the mental health field before making aliyah in July 2019. She was in her second year of nursing school at Hadassah, in an accelerated program in cooperation with Hebrew University and the Ministry of Health.
This is an excerpt from the weekly letter from Tamar to her parents.
This week I began my rotation in surgery and orthopedics at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. The shift starts early in the morning and as I wait for the bus there is a heavy fog that blankets the city, as if to try to protect it from the horrors of war.
Hadassah Ein Kerem lies on the eastern edge of Jerusalem, surrounded by the Jerusalem Forest. It is the biggest hospital in Jerusalem and has been accepting patients injured in the war since the beginning. The classrooms in the nursing school have been converted into makeshift wards. The seminar rooms for visitors have been allocated for the reserve soldiers serving in the hospital. In orthopedics, many of the beds are filled with injured soldiers. There is an unspoken fear the war will get worse if there is a ground invasion.
In the meantime, we prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
Of the war crimes, the horrific cruelty done to the hundreds of victims, I will not write about here. I would like to speak about the people who are trying to help and keep living their life in the shadow of war. People who don’t make the front page but are just as newsworthy.
Iwould like to tell you about Fadhi. He’s an Arab nurse who works with intubated patients. He’s originally from a Bedouin community in the
Negev desert. His eldest son serves in the Border Police Unit in the Israeli army and was badly wounded by falling shrapnel from a rocket. His son continued fighting and it was only after he had recovered intelligence with the names of many of the terrorists who had infiltrated Israel that he agreed to be treated. Fadhi left his wounded son’s side in Ashdod to come to Jerusalem to help care for the large influx of patients from the south.
I would like to tell you of a doctor (who did not wish to be named) who took a sabbatical from his high-powered job as a department head of anesthesiology in North America to volunteer as a doctor without pay at Hadassah. The hospital has over 100 operating rooms and they work around the clock.
Of a young Arab student named Raayan. Her neighbour, a young man of 19 from Abu Gosh, an Arab town just outside of Jerusalem, was badly hurt.
A rocket fell on the mosque where he was praying. Raayan keeps checking her phone for updates.
The young man was rushed to Hadassah, clinically dead with no heartbeat. Several surgeries prolonged his life for another week. Unfortunately, he passed away earlier this week. Terrorism doesn’t differentiate.
Of the young couple who are parents of baby twin boys. The father would like to go and donate blood but the mother begs him not to leave. How will she be able to scoop up both infants and make it down to the shelter in 90 seconds?
Of a large group of high school yeshiva boys. They heard there was a shortage of cleaning staff at the hospital and volunteered to clean. Not only did they undertake a massive job, they did so while singing and dancing!
Of Rona, my classmate who decided to go back to school after a successful career as a sports trainer. Two of her sons are serving in the reserves, one in the north, one in the south. Every ring of her phone brings a look of panic to her eyes.
Of the young girl who lived
a floor above me. She showed me how fast she could run, saying she’s been practicing in case a siren goes off. No child should have to do this.
Of the young man who used his tzitzit as a tourniquet after being badly wounded fighting terrorists at his home in Sderot, while his family hid in the bomb shelter.
Of a well-known Israeli crime family that showed up to a donation drop-off zone with thousands of illegal cigarettes for soldiers.
Of all the people who showed up to dig graves when there was a desperate call for volunteers.
Of people who have taken time to help stock the shelves of grocery stores.
Of professional caterers giving freely of their time and money to feed soldiers and their families at home.
We are a resilient and hopeful people. Together we will go forward with growing strength and courage.
For the full story, scan the
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Tamar Ellis
Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem
Dec. 27, 2023: Parents of Canadian soldiers in Israel were waiting and worrying
Canadian parents whose children are serving in the Israel Defence Forces were balancing pride and worry as they waited to hear from their sons and daughters who have volunteered to fight in the ongoing war with Hamas.
For many of them, weeks had passed since they were last in contact with their children. In most cases, they say ‘no news is good news’ as many soldiers have to leave their cell phones behind when they enter Gaza and can’t communicate with their families.
Karen, who lives in Montreal and does not want her last name used, was only receiving updates from a parent group chat from her son’s unit. The group chat had been a lifeline since nearly six weeks elapsed since she last heard from him. Her son Michael, 22, enlisted in the army as a lone soldier 18 months earlier.
“I am extremely proud of him. He has taught me how to be brave, how to be courageous, and how to be selfless,” Karen told The CJN. “But I was not prepared for the feeling of helplessness and this knot that you constantly have in your stomach.”
Paul Hirschson, Consul General for Israel who is based in Montreal, meets regularly with parents whose children have decided to serve or who have been drafted while living in Israel. Hirschson, whose own son also served in the IDF, said that
none of the parents he’s met with have expressed that they want their children to come back home.
“The overwhelming sentiment that I’ve come across is much more pride and determination,” Hirschson said. “It’s a balancing act of concern and pride.”
Some parents had gone to Israel for brief visits with their children while others stayed in Montreal. One couple Hirschson met with visited their
daughter-in-law and grandchild but were adamant about not seeing their son, keen on not disturbing his mission.
“The Montreal Jewish community is hugely engaged with Israel,” said Hirschson in December. “In the darkness of the last two months and the horror stories we hear and the ongoing experience of the hostages, it has been a really inspiring component to meet these parents.”
Hirschson happened to be in
decided to go to Israel immediately when the war began. She was opposed to Eden’s decision at first since he had already served as a lone soldier, but quickly understood there was no stopping his determination to help Israel. His initial flight was canceled to her relief, but on Oct. 16 he got an emergency letter from the army on his birthday and he was on a plane the next day. A couple of days later, he met with his unit in the north on the Lebanese border where they stayed for a month and now he is in Gaza. Philip’s youngest son, Benjamin who was born in Montreal, left on Dec. 18 to go to Israel after telling her that it was his time to serve. He expressed his desire to join an elite unit. Philip said at that moment she realized she had to let go of her fear and be as supportive as possible to her children.
I’m releasing the control of what I cannot control.”
The night before both of her sons left, Philip sat them down and helped them write their wills, realizing that anything could happen during their time away. She admitted that it was unfathomable at first but offered her a sense of relief knowing that she would respect her sons’ wishes no matter what happened and was able to show them that she supported them completely.
“My kids did it (enlisted) not because they had to but because they wanted to. To choose to go to the army, follow certain rules, being under strict conduct, takes a lot of courage. I’m proud of my two boys that that was their choice. I strongly believe that they will do their best and they will come back safe and sound.”
She had been able to see Ari for a few brief visits since the war. His only requests were fresh fruits and vegetables and a hot shower.
Halevi-Wise planned to stay in Israel with her daughter—who is working on her PhD—and her youngest son, a yeshiva student.
August 2024 update:
Galia Philip said her son Ben is finishing his training in a paratrooping unit, completing his parachuting course and sniper training. Ben overcame an injury during training and is now preparing to serve in a parachuting unit. She anticipates he will be deployed to Gaza or Lebanon.
“Our worry is not only that our children can be killed and maimed,” said Yael Halevi-Wise, the mother of an IDF soldier.
“He is really striving in what he is doing and I speak to him almost every night. He said ‘Ima, no matter how hard the challenge, I am always reminding myself what is the purpose I came for’.”
Israel when the war began and his son who is a reservist was called up after already serving for a year and a half. He helped his son get some supplies and was back in Montreal a few days later. Hirschson highlighted the fact that national service is a very normal part of life for citizens.
Galia Philip, an Israeli living in Canada for more than 20 years, had two sons serving in the army. Her older son, Eden, 27,
“I sent my child with a blessing.
It’s not that I’m not afraid, it’s not that I’m not worried,” said Galia Philip, the mother of two IDF soldiers.
“But it’s a different way of being worried.
It’s a different type of fear.”
“If I say with my deepest belief that he’s there, he’s protected, he’s doing what he has to do, then I’m sending him with ease.
Yael Halevi-Wise, a McGill University professor on sabbatical in Israel, had a 20-yearold son serving in Gaza. Ari was born in Montreal after she and her husband were hired at McGill.
After graduating high school, Ari visited Israel for a year, and then decided he wanted to live there. His national service was extended because of the war.
“I am very sad that my son has to be a soldier. I am very worried for him and all the other soldiers. I’m sad about the world that does not hold Hamas accountable,” Halevi-Wise told The CJN.
Prior to last Rosh Hashanah, her son was stationed outside of Gaza, close to where Hamas launched its massacre of 1,200 Israelis. The week of Oct. 7, her son’s unit was sent up north to the Golan to become familiar with the terrain. The move saved his life, Halevi-Wise said. All the others from the group who were there were taken hostage.
“Already they have had to participate in something sad and unnatural. How will they come out of it?
He has no pride and I have none either.
What we have is very much a feeling of belonging and of responsibility.”
Paul Hirschson, Israel’s Consul General in Montreal, told The CJN that his son got out in May after being called up on reserve duty on Oct. 8. Hirschson has not seen him since.
“I suggested he come visit me this summer but he said he can’t. He hadn’t been to work for five months so needed to get back to work. Longest I haven’t seen him since he was born.”
For the full story, scan the QR code to visit thecjn.ca
Ben Philip
Amanda Polese-Lovgren
June 3, 2024: A visit to Toronto by Hagar Brodutch, a hostage who was released after 51 days
When she talks about when she was a hostage, Hagar Brodutch just says ‘when we were there’—as if she and her family were visiting some faraway place, or distant cousins, a long time ago.
But, in reality, ‘when we were there’ is a family shorthand for the unimaginable—the 51 days that she, her three young children and a neighbour’s child were held hungry and terrified, kidnapped from their home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza by Hamas on Oct. 7.
“I always felt safe because this is how I grew up. I always believed everything was going to be OK,” the 41-year-old mother said in an interview with The CJN.
“I was very confident, but now I don’t believe in anybody, I don’t trust in anybody… I know that it will take time and that I need to recover and I need my family to recover.”
Part of the recovery involved a trip to Toronto, where her brother-in-law and his family lives. For a few weeks, the family are staying in a home in a leafy neighbourhood, where the kids are playing Minecraft with their cousins, and planning the usual tourist outings to the aquarium and the Toronto Islands. Hagar, and her husband Avichai—who was injured defending the kibbutz—are also making the rounds in a series of speaking engagements be-
fore the Jewish community, thanking people for their advocacy and pleading for the release of the hostages still in Gaza.
When Hagar and the children were released on Nov. 26, Avichai joked and told her she was now the most famous woman in Israel. In Canada, where their 10-yearold daughter Ofri had gone to a Zionist summer camp with her cousin the summer before, and thousands of people had sent letters to them via the International Red Cross, it was certainly true.
“We got the letters when we
came back. When we were in Gaza, we didn’t know that somebody cares about us, but when we came back, we realized that everybody cares about us.” Hagar said.
“It took us hours to open all the letters… hours of so many emotions, joy and sad,” she said.
On the morning of Oct. 7, Avichai woke to the sound of loud explosions and the terrifying sight of terrorists floating down on parachutes. He ran to the armory with his team who were trained to protect the kibbutz. The plan had been that the 15-man team would defend the kibbutz for at most 30 min-
Avigail, they learned, had been in her father’s arms when he was fatally shot. Her mother had also been killed and the child had run to her neighbours. (Her older brother and sister would survive the massacre, and were discovered 14 hours later hiding in a closet in their home.)
Avichai scooped the child up and brought her to Hagar in the safe room. She too, was kidnapped with the Brodutch family.
At first Hagar thought the terrorists who broke into her home were only intending to steal the family car, when they asked for the keys. But it quickly became apparent they intended to force them into the car and drive into Gaza, five kilometres from the kibbutz.
Once they crossed into Gaza, the terrorists held Ofri up as a prize, a young Jewish girl who had been captured, Avichai said during a speech he gave at a Toronto synagogue.
Hagar touches lightly on the ordeal of the 51 days that they spent locked in homes in Gaza.
utes, until reinforcements from a nearby IDF base could arrive, he said.
In reality, the surrounding bases were overrun and it would take the army hours to come. In the end, 64 people on the kibbutz were murdered and 19 were taken hostage. Avichai was injured. Hagar, meanwhile, was in their home’s safe room, with her children—Ofri, who had turned 10 the day before, Yuval, 8, and Oriya, 4. The family heard a faint knock on the door and Avichai opened it to find his friend’s fouryear-old daughter, covered in her father’s blood.
“You just survive for them, you just care about the kids,” Hagar said. “When we needed something from the terrorists, I always asked for things for the kids, I never asked for anything for me.”
thought Hagar and the children had been killed when she stopped answering the frantic text messages he was sending while he was exchanging gunfire with the terrorists.
A day later, when he learned they had been kidnapped, he took a chair, and accompanied by the family dog, sat in front of the Defense Ministry building in Tel Aviv, demanding the government make every effort to bring his family, and the other hostages, home.
“People ask me if I want revenge. We don’t have the privilege as Jews to take revenge on anyone,” he told the audience of about 700 people.
every day. And four of my closest friends are dead. It will be hard to sit there without them,” he said.
A lot of the community is going to rebuild from the ashes, he said. “I just don’t think I can.”
After a few weeks, they were moved when the IDF bombed the house they were in. In the second home, they were given only one pita each a day. The children were starving and covered in lice.
Hagar spoke in whispers to keep the children calm.
In a bid to distract themselves from their hunger, they made a list of the 26 restaurants around the world they dreamed of eating at.
The children desperately missed the family dog, Rodney, who had been their best friend back home and spoke about him too.
Hagar thought both the dog and her husband were dead, but did not mention it to the children.
“Even if I smelled that they were drinking coffee, I never asked them to give me a cup of coffee as well, because I knew that it can…,” she said her sentence unfinished. “I can ask something for the kids. You just survive, you don’t have any other options.”
After their release, the children had a joyful reunion with their father and their dog and they moved to a home in Herzliya. The place was beautiful, but they miss the kibbutz lifestyle, surrounded by fields and their community, Hagar said.
For now, most of Kfar Aza is uninhabitable, although the Brodutch house was not badly damaged. Many of the kibbutz members have been relocated to another nearby kibbutz while their own homes are rebuilt.
Hagar says Israel is home, but she isn’t ready to return to Kfar Aza.
“I really love my country. I’m an Israeli, I want to be there, but if the war will not be over, I don’t think I can live there,” she said.
In a speech at the Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto synagogue, Avichai recounted his half of the story. At first, he
“I’m not saying we don’t need a strong army. I’m not saying we don’t need to fight. I’m not saying we don’t need to kill our enemies before they kill us.
“It still doesn’t give us the right not to be humane and not to strive for peace for as long as we can. This is the message we need to show the world.”
Before Oct. 7. Avichai reminded the listeners, Israel was bitterly divided over the direction of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and proposed judicial reforms.
But on the day of the attack, people from the nearby religious kibbutz, Sa’ad, ran over in their bare feet on Shabbat morning to save the Jews of Kfar Aza, which he described as a left-wing kibbutz.
Like his wife Hagar, he can’t envision returning to Kfar Aza, where he had lived for a decade and grew pineapples, just metres from the fence separating Israel and Gaza.
“I love the kibbutz, I really do,” Avichai said. “My house had a big table outside and I had a refrigerator outside full of beers and everyone used to come and take a beer and sit with me and this was almost
For the full story, scan the QR code to visit thecjn.ca.
Lila Sarick
Hagar Brodutch, her children Oriya, Ofri and Yuval, and her husband Avichai
Oct. 7, 2024: A wave of memorial projects are commemorating the Canadian lives lost one year ago
Adi Vital-Kaploun, 33, is being remembered in several projects after the Israeli-Canadian was murdered at her home on Kibbutz Holit while saving the lives of her young sons, Negev and Eshel.
In Ottawa, where her mother Jacqui Rivers Vital grew up, the Adi Vital-Kaploun JCC Sports Camp Scholarship Fund was created this year by the Ottawa Jewish Community Foundation.
“The most important thing is not to forget her,” Jacqui told The CJN from Israel. “She’s not just a number… she had a lot to give.”
Adi graduated with highest honours from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s Master’s program in desert studies, solar energy and environmental physics.
Professor Muhammad Bashouti, with whom she worked closely, said: “Adi was the brightest student I ever worked with.” He is naming his new lab after Adi Vital-Kaploun, and plans to dedicate it on Oct. 7, 2024.
An endowed fellowship in her name has also been established through the university’s Canadian fundraising arm. Meanwhile, a fundraiser hosted at the JGive website primarily supports Negev and Eshel.
Artistic tributes include multiple original musical compositions based on a poem written by Adi and now written on her
gravestone. One special necklace project bears Vital-Kaploun’s engraved image; in time, Vital says, her grandsons will receive theirs to keep their mother close to them.
A fundraising T-shirt from Ottawa features a lioness design inspired by Vital-Kaploun’s fierce protection of her “cubs,” serendipitously ended up printing the shirts at Irving Rivers, a Byward Market shop owned by her aunt.
Vital says at least three requests to use her daughter’s name have come via the worldwide Simchat Torah Project, which invites synagogues to create and display new Torah covers with the names of those fallen on Oct. 7.
Toronto’s Congregation
Shaarei Shomayim new Torah cover honours Yonadav Levenstein, 23, an Israeli-Canadian whose grandparents are synagogue members. Levenstein, who lived in Ma’ale Adumim, died fighting with the IDF in northern Gaza on Nov. 7.
Anew award is just one of the legacies of Vivian Silver 74, a peace activist, originally from Winnipeg, who co-founded Women Wage Peace, a womenled Israeli-Arab non-governmental organization. Silver was killed at her home on Kibbutz Be’eri.
Silver’s name thanks to an NGO called Clean Shelter and other agencies.
Zeigen says it was moving to know that Palestinians in Gaza wanted to honour her.
“It’s a great symbol of our ability to look beyond [violence]… of the ability to [reconcile] and heal together across the divide.
A concert scheduled in Winnipeg for Nov. 9—which is the anniversary of Kristallnacht— will feature the Sarah Sommer Chai Folk Ensemble, and include a new composition in memory of Silver.
Then there’s the commemorative chapbook of poems by Judih Weinstein Haggai, 70, who was from Toronto and held Canadian and U.S. citizenship.
The haiku poet and teacher of meditation and mindfulness for both Arab and Jewish children in southern Israel was killed in the Oct. 7 attack near her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz along with her husband, Gadi.
grenade to save his fiancée, Irene Shavit, when the attack reached their home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
Epstein was a passionate soccer player who had been a goalkeeper on Hapoel Beer Sheva’s youth team, and was a fan of the clubs Beitar Jerusalem in Israel, Liverpool in the U.K., and Borussia Dortmund in Germany. The German club invited Epstein’s family to a game in Germany earlier this year. Some 81,000 attendees were shown Epstein’s image on a huge screen, according to a report in Israel Hayom
Alexandre Look, 33, who died protecting others at a bomb shelter entrance during the Nova music festival massacre, was part of the close-knit Jewish community in Côte Saint-Luc on the island of Montreal.
lost his life at Nova, learned of his heroism in the days after the attack: Mizrachi used the medical training he had received in the Israel Defence Forces to tend to the wounded.
In December 2023, the Mizrachi family worked with the Jewish National Fund Pacific Region to establish a fund, then a memorial space in his name in Kvutzat Yavneh, the kibbutz where he lived and is buried.
Mizrachi will also be honoured in a ceremony on Oct. 7 at Vancouver’s King David High School, where he graduated in 2018.
tion joyfully memorializes each of the more than 360 festivalgoers killed on Oct. 7.
The award “holds commemoration and creates legacy and heritage, but through the promotion of the work, and the continuation of the work,” Yonatan Zeigen, one of Silver’s sons, told The CJN.
“She was a pretty prominent woman, a leader all the time, the manager… but she never sucked the energy out of the
The Vivian Silver Impact Award, founded by Silver’s family together with the New Israel Fund, will have its inaugural event in November in Israel, and will award $15,000 each to an Israeli woman and a Palestinian woman working in cross-border peace building or advancing women’s leadership in NGOs.
room. She was always very humble.”
Yonatan, who lives in Israel, has been approached to approve other legacy projects, including a children’s book from an Israeli publisher as part of a series focusing on Israeli women leaders. A Canadian-Israeli documentary production is underway, while Arab-Jewish organization AJEEC-NISPED is dedicating a new building in Israel to Silver, whose name also graced the 2024 summer clothing line of Israeli fashion house Comme Il Faut.
Even in southern Gaza, a community kitchen in a humanitarian zone now bears
The chapbook project was organized by a group of English-speaking poets, Voices Israel, some of whose members have composed new poems using parts of Haggai’s work.
Israeli-Canadian Netta Epstein, 21, threw himself on a
A new green space in his name, the Alexandre Look Place, will be located between the Bialik school Look attended and the nearby Chabad, and will feature a commemorative plaque.
Montreal’s Federation CJA also hosted a matching donation fundraiser after Look’s death for a bomb shelter in Israel in his memory.
The family of Ben Mizrachi, 22, of Vancouver, who also
In honour of Mizrachi and other victims of the Oct. 7 attacks, a memorial Yizkor service will be held at Congregation Schara Tzedeck, a modern Orthodox synagogue in Vancouver, which will also place Mizrachi’s name on its newly refurbished Torah, along with a new cover.
While website memorials, funds, and projects continue, the partygoers killed at the Nova music festival were also remembered at the Burning Man festival.
The annual Nevada desert gathering in late August featured the tribute exhibition We Will Dance Again, which has gone up in Tel Aviv, New York, and Los Angeles. The installa-
Jonathan Rothman with files from Sam Margolis
A Torah cover designed for the Simchat Torah project
October 7, 2024