10/07/2026
AS THE CONGREGATION B’NAI ISRAEL COMMUNITY marks the horrific events of October 7, 2023, CBI’s Interim Senior Rabbi Cy Stanway shares the following reflection on the day.
The events of October 7th cut to the very core of our Jewish souls.
We witnessed a horror that words can barely contain. We saw images we wish we could unsee—images of cruelty and terror that have been burned into our memories and will remain etched upon our hearts. We felt a grief so deep that, at times, it seemed to belong not only to those who were murdered, wounded, or taken, but to every one of us.
And then came another kind of pain.
We watched as Jewish houses of worship were vandalized and Jewish businesses were attacked. We watched Jews being threatened, harassed, and assaulted simply for being visibly, unmistakably Jewish. Across Europe and America, Canada and Australia, Jews once again discovered what our ancestors knew too well: that hatred can travel quickly, and that sometimes the world finds it easier to blame the Jew than to confront the hatred itself.
Not the aggressors.
Not those who unleashed the violence.
Not those who celebrated it.
The victims.
And their cousins.
And their brothers and sisters.
Every Jew.
And yet, even in the darkness, something within us refused to be extinguished.
Because alongside the grief, we discovered resilience. Alongside the fear, we found courage. And alongside the tears, we found joy.
After October 7th, a phrase echoed throughout Israel and across the Jewish world:
Od nirkod.
We will dance again.
And dance we did.
We put on our Magen Davids and wore them proudly—not hidden beneath our shirts, but visible for the world to see. We spoke more openly about who we were. We gathered in our synagogues. We sang. We prayed. We celebrated. Some who had placed their Judaism in a drawer, taking it out only on occasion, opened that drawer again—and discovered that what they thought had gathered dust was still alive.
For some, Judaism became not simply an inheritance, but a choice.
For others, it became a home.
And for many of us, it became something we could no longer imagine hiding.
The haters wanted to frighten us into silence. They wanted us to make ourselves smaller, quieter, less visible. They wanted the Star of David hidden, the Jewish voice muted, the Jewish soul diminished.
But something remarkable happened instead.
They reminded us of who we are.
They reminded us that our Judaism is not merely a history we carry behind us. It is a living soul within us.
They reminded us that to be Jewish is to remember—and to rebuild. To mourn—and to sing. To weep—and still to dance.
They tried to make us afraid of being Jewish.
Instead, they made us more conscious of the extraordinary gift of being Jewish.
And so, we will remember.
We will grieve.
We will stand.
We will sing.
And, as our people have done for thousands of years, we will dance again.
Cy Stanway
Cantor David Muchnick
Nadel Center for Early Childhood Education
Barry Ira Graff School for Living Judaism at Congregation B'nai Israel
