An extra poignant event
"If you want to appreciate the numbers that we lost, look around the shule and you will see 1600 people," says Rabbi Levi Wolff.
During a poignant Yom Hazikaron ceremony at Central Synagogue on Sunday night, Rabbi Levi Wolff offered a visual representation of the lives lost protecting Israel and in terror attacks in the past year.
“If you want to appreciate the numbers that we lost, look around the shule and you will see 1600 people,” he said. “It’s no coincidence.”
With many of those losses occurring on October 7 or in Israel’s subsequent war against Hamas in Gaza, those events were front and centre of the commemoration.
“Yom Hazikaron has been so present, so heavy, every day since Simchat Torah, October 7,” Zionist Council of NSW vice-president Rebecca Lacey-Erlich said.
Noa, a 23-year-old survivor of the Nova festival, described how she and her DJ partner escaped as Hamas infiltrated the festival and murdered their fellow revellers.
“We saw things that sometimes prevent us from sleeping, lots of screams, blood and worst of all dead bodies just tossed on the road,” she said.
“It’s crazy to think about all the small choices we made during the escape. Choices between left and right that eventually saved us.”
Duvdevan Foundation director Yoav Yichie eulogised Sergeant Omri Michaeli, who fell defending Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7.
“While entering one of the houses, the team was ambushed by a large group of terrorists. Omri as always was the first one to enter the house. And as a result, he copped most of the fire,” he said.
Bnei Akiva shlichah Mor Lacob paid tribute to Captain Liel Hayo, who fell in Gaza on December 12.
“He was the kind of guy with the biggest smile on his face … a real soldier, kind and smiling, powerful and gentle at the same time … always leading by example,” she said.
“Liel was leading his soldiers in battle, and was the first one to fall.”
Tomer Miller spoke about his friend Ido Baruch, who was killed in battle in Khan Younis on April 6.
“You’re the one who taught me the first guitar strumming, how to surf, how to ride a skateboard and solve a Rubik’s Cube,” he said.
“I’m honoured to forever carry a part of your spirit with me.”
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