BRIGHTON, N.Y. — Hundreds within the Jewish community gathered at Temple B’rith Kodesh in Brighton on Monday night to remember the more than 1,200 who died in the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel. They also called for a return of the hostages still held captive in Gaza.

Right now, more than 100 people are still in captivity, including seven Americans. Attendees say you don’t have to go far within the Jewish community to find a person who lost someone during the attacks.

“The event that’s taking place tonight is to memorialize not only all of those lives, but the lives of the soldiers that have been lost as they’ve been trying to rescue hostages and eliminate Hamas,” said Monica Gebell, executive director of the Levine Center to End Hate.

The ceremony gave people a chance to come together and remember the lives lost and those still being held captive.

“We haven’t lost anyone personally that I know, thank God. But a friend lost somebody that she had sort of adopted as she had visited Israel, became a friend to him,” said June Slavny, a member of the Congregation Beth Sholom. “However, there was a boy who converted to Judaism and made Aliyah, which means he went to Israel to live and join the army and he did get killed and he was brought back to Rochester to be buried.”

But others within the Jewish community, such as members of the Jewish Voices for Peace U of R chapter, say these attacks don’t warrant the current war in Gaza.

“I, like so many people in the Jewish community, know people who were personally affected by that day. And I think when we talk about mourning, I think, you know, there’s so much mourning I think we all should be engaging in right now,” said Miller Gentry-Sharp of Jewish Voices for Peace. “However, what I can’t allow myself to do and what really pains me to see is when that sort of that mourning is used to justify other loss of life, when that mourning is sort of seen used to argue for more killing, because really what we should all be striving for is an end to the violence.”

Jewish Voices for Peace is calling on national leaders to begin an arms embargo to Israel, and calling on international leaders to bring an immediate ceasefire to Gaza.

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