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Long Island Community Commemorates Two Years Since Oct. 7 Hamas Attacks

October 7, 2025
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Aviv Lapid describes the moment warning alarms woke her up during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. A former resident of Sderot, just minutes from the Gaza Strip, Lapid recounted the 36 hours she and her family spent trapped in their home, and the devastating losses in her community. (Photos: Alexandra Moyen)

GLEN COVE — Before Oct. 7, 2023, Aviv Lapid described where she lived in Israel as being just a five-minute run from the Gaza Strip. Two years later, Lapid now refers to the space as “the distance between Hamas terrorists and my house.”  

Lapid told her story at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County on Oct. 5 during a commemoration ceremony marking two years since the Hamas attacks.  

She described her home in Sderot, Israel, as the safest place in the world until 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 7, 2023, when she recalled being awoken by the sounds of rocket alarms, and then stuck inside her home with her family for 11 hours before Israel Defense Forces arrived and began defending the surrounding areas.  

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“We were ordered to close the doors, the windows, turn off the lights, and stay in our safe room, and we were [in Sderot] for 36 hours,” Lapid told The Tablet. “A lot of people from our community died [or] were kidnapped. It was a tragedy for the whole community.”   

By the time the attacks were over, 53 people were killed in Sderot: 37 civilians, 11 police officers, two firefighters, and one IDF soldier.  

Bali Lerner, executive director of the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center, is warmly thanked by an attendee following the Oct. 5 Commemoration Ceremony. Lerner, who helped organize the event to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, emphasized the importance of education in the fight against antisemitism, saying, “The best way to truly say ‘Never again’ is to live it.”

Lapid’s testimony was one of many given at the event, which the center hosted for the second time. The event is a collaborative effort between the Sid Jacobson Jewish Community Center in East Hills and the Long Island Jewish Commission, meant to honor the lives lost in the Hamas attack and reaffirm a commitment to peace.  

This year’s commemoration included the installation of a plaque in remembrance of the hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7. It was placed near the center’s Children’s Memorial Garden, which honors children who were murdered during the Holocaust. The event concluded with a candle lighting to honor victims of both the Holocaust and Oct. 7.  

“I can’t believe that here we are two years later, and we still have the hostages that are being held and completely mistreated and starved to death,” Bali Lerner, the executive director of the Holocaust Memorial and Remembrance Center, told The Tablet. As of Oct. 7, 47 hostages remained in captivity. 

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The ceremony ended with a Lerner reflecting on the slogan “Never again” — a vow in the Jewish community to prevent atrocities like the Holocaust, and the theme for the commemoration event.  

“We feel the best way to truly say, ‘Never again,’ is to live it by educating people. We have over 30,000 people that we reach,” Lerner said. “Our mission is to educate them and make them really understand that what they’re hearing out on social media and from people in the media as well, unfortunately, at times, is not necessarily accurate.” 

Attendees sing “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem, during the Oct. 5 Commemoration Ceremony at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center. The moment honors the victims of both the Holocaust and the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, symbolizing the enduring strength and resilience of the Jewish people.

Lapid, who now lives in New York with her family, said she wants people to understand that the victims of the Hamas attack were “normal people with names and lives.”  

“I want people to understand that we are all humans,” Lapid said. “It’s important to know that [the victims] are people and not IDF soldiers or demons or whatever people think in their minds when they’re thinking about the people who had died on Oct. 7.”