Pittsburgh vigil marks 500 days of mourning, prayer and solidarity

More than 250 community members came together on Tuesday in prayer, grief, song and hope to mark 500 days since Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and launched a war that has claimed thousands of lives.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacked the Jewish state, viciously murdering more than 1200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 251 people to Gaza. The terrorists used rape as a tool of war, slaughtered parents in front of their children and children in front of their parents.

Jews around the world have been mourning since then, and fearful for the fate of the hostages — those who remain in Gaza as well as those who have come home but have a long road to recovery.

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“Five hundred days since hundreds of innocent people were brutally kidnapped from their homes and kept in tunnels, with 73 remaining today,” began Julie Paris, MidAtlantic regional director of StandWithUs, which sponsored the vigil along with the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Israeli community. “Five hundred days of witnessing 27,000 missiles fired indiscriminately into Israel. Five hundred days of pain, of prayer, of helplessness, of screaming from the rooftops. Five hundred days of shock at the silence and open hostility of too many, but also of finding friends in unexpected places. Five hundred days of finding our own voices. Five hundred days of a fragile Jewish unity in the most difficult of times.”

The vigil, held at the JCC in Squirrel Hill, drew Jewish community members and their allies from across Greater Pittsburgh, including several local politicians. Mayor Ed Gainey, Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor, City Controller Rachael Heisler, state Rep. Dan Frankel and City Councilmember Erika Strassburger were among the government officials who came to support their local Jewish community — a community which has been targeted with more than 300 acts of antisemitism since the beginning of the war. Both Pennsylvania senators, John Fetterman and Dave McCormick, sent messages of solidarity to be read to the crowd.

“My commitment in spirit, vote and voice for Israel and the global Jewish community is ironclad and unbreakable,” Fetterman wrote.

McCormick, in a message read by his Western Pennsylvania Regional Director Sam DeMarco, said that he and his wife, Dina, visited Israel in January 2024 “to see the devastation for ourselves.”

“We have been praying with all of you for the last 500 days for every hostage to come home safely,” he said.

The gathering drew rabbis from across the denominational spectrum, with many called to lead the crowd in prayer, remembrance and unity.

Jeff Finkelstein, the Federation’s president and CEO, acknowledged that the coming week would be an “emotional rollercoaster” as more hostages were scheduled to be released and the bodies of some who “lost their lives at the hands of barbarian Hamas terrorists will be returned home.”

“It’s unthinkable, yet it’s reality,” Finkelstein said. “This has been what Jews have lived throughout history, celebrating in times of joy and standing together in difficult times. But through it all, it’s about being together. It’s about community.”

A short film depicting scenes of former hostages in emotional reunions with their families was screened, as was another film with images of those still held in Gaza.

Dean Aseef, an Israeli shaliach (emissary) in Pittsburgh, spoke about hostage Alon Ohel, who grew up in Misgav, Pittsburgh’s Partnership2Gether’s sister region. Ohel, a gifted pianist who was abducted from the Nova music festival, is still held in Gaza. His family recently received word that he is alive but is severely injured, Aseef said.

Ohel was 22 when he was kidnapped. He is now 24.

After he was abducted, Ohel’s family set up a yellow piano in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, launching the “Yellow Piano Initiative” in support of the hostages. There are now more than 40 yellow pianos in 10 countries.

In August, Pittsburgh’s JCC installed a yellow piano with the message “You Are Not Alone.” That piano will remain in place until all the hostages are released.

Ohel’s family, Aseef said, asked him to share a message. “Pray for Alon. Pray for freedom,” they wrote. “Alon is more than a hostage. He is a son, a brother, a friend and a passionate pianist. … Every life is precious. Every hostage must come home.”

Following Aseef’s remarks, Nanette Kaplan Solomon sat at the yellow piano and, accompanied by Sarah Kendis on oboe, played “Tachzor” (“Come Back”). That piece was followed by “Habaita.” Joining Solomon and Kendis were Rabbi Seth Adelson of Congregation Beth Shalom on voice and guitar, Lina Horwitz on violin and J-JEP’s Rabbi Larry Freedman on drums.

The Rev. Canon Natalie Hall, rector at Church of the Redeemer and pastor of St. Mary Magdalene Lutheran Episcopal Church, began her address by laying bare the truth of Oct. 7, its aftermath and its impact on Pittsburgh’s Jewish community.

“After the largest organized pogrom of Jewish people since the Holocaust, there was astonishing silence,” Hall said. “Yes, there were some statements released by religious, academic and political bodies, yet most seemed incapable of acknowledging that the deadly massacre of Jewish civilians was consummately wrong, as they accompanied each bland statement with caveats. And I’m afraid that these halfhearted equivocations remain and have shifted cruelly over these last 500 days toward derision, contempt, threats and violence, many which you have suffered with those same religious, academic, political and religious bodies and more, reasserting the ancient shape-shifting anti-Jewish tropes that cause you the impossible fear and grief of your ancestors.”

Hall called out the “lack of moral clarity to name evil as evil,” and stressed that supporting the Jewish people does not imply a lack of support for Palestinian people.

“It should go without saying, but I will say it here for the record that I have yet to meet a Jewish friend or colleague here in Pittsburgh who seeks or celebrates the harm of any Palestinian person,” she said. “To vociferously support Jewish people here and in Israel, even these 500 days later, does not deny the humanity of Palestinians, because God grieves the loss of life in all creation, including Israel, a grief which knows no political boundaries.”

“You remain in an impossible place,” Hall said, “and I recognize and grieve the wounds that you have suffered, both seen and unseen. And I remain a committed partner in healing existing places of intractable antisemitism together with people inside and beyond the Jewish community, so that we might have life together.”

Gainey told the Chronicle that he came to the event in support of “humanitarian rights.”
“At the end of the day, you want everybody to be free, and every day you want people to be home with their families,” he said. “And every day you want to make sure you’re praying for a better tomorrow than you have today.”

O’Connor, who has family in Israel, said it was important to be present at the vigil, not only to support Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, but because of “the tragedy that occurred 500 days ago.”

“You have to come out and show your support for the loved ones that are still being held hostage — especially as an elected official in the county, supporting our Jewish community the best we can.”

Tree of Life Congregation’s Rabbi Hazan Jeffrey Myers, who led attendees in both “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Hatikvah,” is a survivor of the antisemitic massacre that occurred in his Squirrel Hill synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018.

“It saddens me that we still are gathering 501 days later,” he said, “with no end in sight.” PJC

Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.