NEW YORK — Five thousand people gathered at the SummerStage in New York’s Central Park Oct. 7 to mark the one-year anniversary of the pogrom carried out by Tehran-backed Hamas thugs in Israel. They came to show their solidarity with the fight against Jew-hatred, to demand the release of all the remaining hostages held in Gaza by Hamas and to defend Israel’s right to exist as a refuge for Jews.
It was one of hundreds of similar gatherings across the U.S., in Israel and around the world that helped keep the brutal reality of what Hamas carried out, and what the Iranian rulers fight for, clearly in the public eye.
The largest event was in London the day before, attracting 30,000 people. Events in Israel were scaled down because of threats of Hezbollah rocket attacks.
The Central Park event — organized by the UJA Federation, Jewish Community Relations Council and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum — was chaired by New Yorker Natalie Sanandaji, one of the survivors of the overnight Nova music festival attacked by Hamas Oct. 7.
Sanandaji said she was sleeping when she was woken by friends who told her that missiles were flying overhead, but not to worry, it was normal.
“Imagine being at a place where having missiles overhead is normal,” she said. But she and other festivalgoers soon realized it was not a normal day. They were under attack by Hamas thugs who began hunting them down.
Sanandaji and her friends began running. “Some of my friends hid in a ditch, others of us kept going,” she said. “Those who stayed in the ditch were all brutally murdered.” She was one of the lucky ones who were rescued.
Those raped, killed and brutalized, “were ordinary people whose only goal was to live peaceful, productive lives side by side with their neighbors,” she said. The Oct. 7 pogrom “transformed every Israeli and every single Jew.”
Ron Segev, another Nova survivor spoke next. “We need to keep fighting against antisemitism,” he said, “because there is no other way.”
“Hamas uses both Israeli hostages and Gazans as human shields,” Ofir Akunis, consul general of Israel in New York, told the crowd, “hiding in mosques, schools and kindergartens.” Ever since Oct. 7 “Israel has been fighting for its life.”
“We must keep the pressure on Hamas” to force it to free the hostages, he added, and say “Let them go. Now!”
Meanwhile, supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah and the reactionary capitalist regime in Tehran marched through the streets of New York and cities around the world, chanting, “Resistance is glorious!” as if the Oct. 7 murder of civilians, the taking of hostages and the rape and mutilation of women can be called “resistance.” They attracted thousands of mostly middle-class leftists and college students.
Demoralized by the fact that Israel has dealt serious blows to Hamas and Hezbollah, Within Our Lifetime, which calls for the destruction of Israel, called on “Muslim men” to do “whatever it takes” to shut down New York City. But in fact disruptions were minimal.