On October 7, Israel remembers the victims and hostages of Hamas’s massacre. But Gaza also has a memory of that day — one of destruction and war triggered by a decision its civilians did not make.
Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said October 7 came at a heavy price, but pointed to Israel’s isolation and renewed Palestinian statehood push as strategic gains.
Three years after October 7, the attack has revived a fundamental Zionist question: Can the Jewish people entrust their security and future to others?
What is at stake in the coming years is not only the physical survival of Israel against enormous challenges, but the preservation of our most basic DNA: responsibility, service, loyalty.
The fourth founding begins with what died on October 7: the idea that the state alone could keep Israelis safe. The onslaught did more than murder and kidnap; it forced a Jewish reckoning.
You didn’t ask who was Right or Left. You didn’t ask who was for or against. You went out to defend human beings. To defend the residents of the Gaza border area. To defend the country.
We learned, at a price no one should ever have to pay, that Never Again is a hope. Saying it cannot make it true.
Since October 7, 4,375 churches have placed 1,200 Israeli flags on their front lawns to memorialize the victims, demonstrating that Hamas’s massacre also revealed who Israel’s friends are.
In a hostile environment similar to 1939, where attacks on Jews are justified, legitimized, and encouraged, what differs in 2026 is that the Jewish people have a homeland and can fight back.
Jewish New Yorkers should take every dollar, apply for every grant, and never once mistake a gesture for protection.
Oct 7 should not belong to those who applaud the murderers. It belongs, first, to the people who lost their lives, to those tortured and taken hostage.
