Michal Alon’s voice shook just once Monday evening as she described how she found herself, a year ago, in a military base with a terrorist.
The nurse and mother was tending to a wounded Israeli watchtower guard in Zikim, a base that sits about a half-mile from Israel’s border with Gaza, when Oct. 7, 2023, turned chaotic.
Everything happened quickly, Alon said, speaking in careful, clipped sentences she occasionally punctuated with Hebrew phrases.
She spoke to a crowd of several hundred people who paid close attention as she shared her experiences from a year ago.
The young soldier she was aiding passed out. A second soldier, manning a nearby doorway, was shot in the head and quickly died.
Then, Alon noticed something weird about the uniform of the man standing next to her.
Before Alon could speak, the man, a Hamas militant disguised as a soldier, turned and shot her three times — once each in the stomach, chest and head.
“I felt my head falling apart from my body,” Alon said. “It’s a minute, I don’t know how to explain it, but suddenly you’re in the middle of a war.”
Alon’s 20-minute personal story formed the foundation of a sometimes-chilling, hour-long ceremony commemorating those killed when Hamas militants stormed southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During the surprise attack, the terrorists killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and kidnapped and injured thousands more in the largest killing of Jews since the Holocaust.
In the war that’s followed, more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed.
Several hundred people — some waving Israeli flags, many holding battery-powered vigil candles — filled a residential block for the commemoration in Squirrel Hill, the center of Jewish life in Pittsburgh.
The event, which the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh sponsored, fell on the same week as Yom Kippur, the holiest holiday of the Jewish calendar — and one centered on atonement and repentance.
It was an evening of meaningful details, many inviting comparisons between Israeli victims and American Jews facing surging antisemitism in Pittsburgh and across the nation.
The ceremony opened with Jan Levinson, chair of the federation’s board of directors, reading the names of 17 people killed in Karmiel and Misgav, Pittsburgh’s sister city and region in the Jewish State.
It ended with a classical quartet whose strings wept — and with fine print, as huge screens set up outside the Jewish Community Center listed the names of the 1,185 Israelis killed in the attack.
Many in the crowd wore yellow ribbons to voice support for Israel. Others placed pieces of tape on their shirts adorned only with a handwritten number — “366,” the number of days Israeli hostages have remained in captivity.
Congregation Beth Shalom Rabbi Seth Adelson strummed an acoustic guitar as he sang “Acheinu,” a prayer — first found in a 9th century prayerbook — for the release of captives.
Adelson’s son, Oryah, a 23-year-old digital marketer who lives in Israel, was pulled from the military reserves last October to serve near the Lebanese border.
He served for four months and was released. Last week, as the Israeli military marched into Lebanon, the military called him to what could become a new front in a Middle Eastern war.
Two women recited the words to “Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem, in Hebrew.
A reading then followed in English from University of Pittsburgh students Asher Goodwin and Ilan Gordon, who were attacked Aug. 30 while wearing yarmulkes and walking to a Shabbat service.
Both men shouted “Am Yisrael Chai!” — a Jewish solidarity anthem that translates to “the people of Israel live” —before leaving the stage.
At times, scores of people softly sang songs or read prayers in unison. At other times, often between event speakers, the crowd was hushed and one could hear crickets chirping.
Some who turned out, like Point Breeze resident Adam Kolko, were not inclined to voice their opinions publicly.
“I’m here to be with the community,” said Kolko, 58, who is Jewish and traded his native Rochester, N.Y. for Pittsburgh 40 years ago. “I’m just here to support and be supported.”
Gene Leyzarovich was among those who made a visual statement. The computer consultant from Shadyside stood for the ceremony with his shoulders draped in a head-to-toe Israeli flag — and he was not alone.
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“We obviously support Israel and their ability to defend themselves,” said Leyzarovich, 51.
Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor, who previously represented Squirrel Hill on Pittsburgh City Council, walked through the crowd.
“It’s a day we’re working to remember,” the Swisshelm Park Democrat said. “It’s great that the community came out and remembered who was lost — and the people who remain hostages.”
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas took 251 people hostage, from children to grandparents. Since then some have been rescued, others confirmed dead, and an estimated 97 remain under their captors’ control, their whereabouts unknown.
In his remarks Monday night, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh President Jeff Finkelstein recognized a number of politicians as allies. Absent from his roundup were U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato and Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey.
The trio issued a joint statement, noting Middle East violence pre-dated Oct. 7, 2023, and mentioning the need to mourn Palestinian deaths. The statement did not mention antisemitism since the attacks but did call for “a lasting peace that ensures safety, dignity and justice for all people.”
That drew the ire of some Jews at the commemorative ceremony.
Temple Sinai Rabbi Daniel Fellman told reporters the message was “tone-deaf.”
“Today, we remember the killing of Jews,” Fellman said. “For them to politicize this, to turn this into a political event, is detrimental to everybody.”
Less than a mile away, pro-Palestine groups hosted a Schenley Park vigil for those killed in Gaza in the Israeli military’s bombing campaign and ground invasion that followed the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks.
“Tonight is a vigil to honor the martyrs who have been killed in Israel’s invasion of Gaza,” said Mia Suwaid, a Pitt junior and co-president of Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Pittsburgh.
At 5:30 p.m., as a crowd grew at the park’s Vietnam veterans pavilion to about 50 or 60 people, Karim Safieddine, a doctoral student at Pitt, handed out Palestinian flags.
“Palestine and the Palestinian people have a right to self-determination and to sovereignty,” said Safieddine, 26, who grew up in Lebanon and moved to the U.S. to attend college. “We feel a duty to speak.”
Then, there was Alon.
“While this evening has been heavy, and it’s been extremely heavy … we must walk away with Michal’s sense of hope,” Finkelstein said.
The Israeli woman closed her own comments by praising the IDF — and thanking the Jewish diaspora, or Jews living outside of Israel, for their support.
“We had six soldiers, six commanders that died (in Zikim) that day — they saved all of us. They fought like lions and lionesses,” Alon said. “Thank God I’m here. And I’m thrilled to see people here in Pittsburgh standing and wanting to hear what happened.”
“This is part of the unity we all need,” she added. “I know it’s different now. But, we are strong and as we are going to win.”