As part of its therapeutic value, time often works wonders. Some people insist it heals all wounds. Alas, not always. Today, two years since Hamas committed its soul-crushing atrocities in Israel, healing for Israelis and Diaspora Jews has barely even begun.

How could it be otherwise given the scale of barbarism that took place on Oct. 7, 2023 — the worst one-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust — that too many people openly welcomed with glee. Here we are, 730 days later, and Hamas is still holding 48 Israeli hostages in Gaza, many of them dead, the others barely clinging to life. This as new developments point to their potential, long-awaited release this week. May it be so, along with an end to the war and the death and suffering of all involved.

It’s sad that so many people forget, minimize or even deny the uncomfortable, incontrovertible facts about what happened on Oct. 7. At 6:29 a.m. on that dark day, immediately after firing 5,000 missiles at Israeli targets from Gaza, Hamas-led Palestinian terrorist groups invaded southern Israel via land, air and sea.

In the ensuing hours, in one of the worst acts of international terrorism on record, they brutally murdered 1,200 people (mostly civilians), wounded thousands, carried out widespread sexual violence, extensive pillaging and property destruction and kidnapped at gunpoint 251 men, women and children, including infants and elderly Holocaust survivors.

To bring the numbers closer to home, proportionately it’s as if terrorists killed nearly 5,000 Canadians and abducted another 1,000, all in less than a day. After viewing evidence of the massacre, then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken bluntly summed up what he saw: “Babies slaughtered. Bodies desecrated. Young people burned alive. Women raped. Parents executed in front of their children, children in front of their parents.”

Such was the magnitude of evil and the deep emotional and psychological scars it inflicted, that Oct. 7 is now a date that lives in infamy, forever etched in the consciousness of Jews as but the latest blood-soaked tragedy in our painful history. You don’t need to be a prophet to know its searing impact will be felt for generations.

This week, in their shared sorrow, Jewish communities in Canada and around the world are commemorating that fateful day, praying for the imminent release of the hostages. In marking this solemn anniversary, what happened two years ago looms large in my mind. I’m taken back to the shock, horror and even panic I felt after I woke up early that Saturday morning with a text I received from a friend in Israel. He alerted me to a real-life nightmare that shook me to the core.

I turned on the news to terrifying reports of Israel being overrun by thousands of marauding terrorists from Gaza and the IDF caught ill-prepared. I wondered in that moment if the onslaught was the start of a multi-front assault, concerned that Iran, Syria and Hezbollah might enter the fray and worried that Israel’s very future could be in danger. Hamas surely knew that Israel would respond forcefully, and that their actions on Oct. 7 would have dire consequences for the region.

In the days and weeks that followed, compounding the nightmare for Israelis and Jews abroad, too many people rationalized, defended and even celebrated Oct. 7. Unfathomably, in the wake of this brutality, we saw a global rise in antisemitism. In Canada, we’ve seen a steady degradation of our ability to live as Jews without fear, consternation and worry of facing hate and harm in its many forms.

The horrific events of Oct. 7 have sadly led to so much death and devastation for Israelis and Palestinians. I pray for the immediate release of the hostages, an end to the war, the removal of Hamas from power, and a path to a much better future for both sides.

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