Honouring October 7 victims
Over 31 countries, 287 cities and 525 communities participated, and 635 Torah covers were made.
This year’s Simchat Torah was going to be challenging – a day which is traditionally a time of joy, was also the yahrzeit of the October 7 Hamas attack that killed more than 1200 people.
To mark both Simchat Torah and honour the victims, Mizrachi World Movement organised “The Simchat Torah Project”, whereby shules around the world would adorn a new Torah cover designed to mark the first yahrzeit of October 7, with the name of one of the victims embroidered onto it.
Over 31 countries, 287 cities and 525 communities participated, and 635 Torah covers were made.
In Melbourne, synagogues took part including Mizrachi, Caulfield Shule, Central Shule, Blake Street, Chabad Glen Eira and Katanga (Caulfield Beth Hamedrash).
Speaking to The AJN, Caulfield Shule’s Rabbi Daniel Rabin said it was “unbelievably special” when his congregation met with Mizrachi’s congregation in a connecting street – Labassa Grove – and around 700 people danced hakafot (circles) with the Torah scrolls dedicated to the memory of the victims of October 7.
The AJN’s religious affairs editor Yossi Aron took part in the hakafot in Labassa Grove and said, “We have lived there for 50 years and we have never seen such a simcha as this.”
Rabbi Rabin said Caulfield shule’s Torah cover honours the memory of Ilay Zisser, who was a first responder killed at Kfar Aza.
Rabbi Rabin said he spoke to Ilay’s sister who works with the Jewish Agency in the US and she told him that he had always wanted to come to Australia. Rabbi Rabin said that Ilay has become “an adopted family member of Caulfield Shule”.
Rabbi Noam Sendor of Blake Street said its Torah cover was “dedicated to the memory of Raz Mizrachi H’YD whose life was cut short at the Nova festival” and added, “We are conscious to state that the Torah study we do should be in her merit and the merit of all the souls cruelly taken from us on that dark day.
“This is what we do – we meet the darkness of this world head-on and illuminate it with the light of Torah, kindness and community.”
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