SEATTLE — The music was blasting. Young people were dancing, sharing in the joy of the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel.
It was Oct. 7, 2023, just before 6:30 a.m. The sun was rising when the music suddenly stopped. Then there was screaming as bullets rained down. Kids ran for their lives.
Much of the chaos that day was recorded by Hamas. Hundreds were killed, dozens were kidnapped and sexually assaulted.
The remnants of so many innocent lives were left scattered on the sand.
That horrific attack happened one year ago, sending shockwaves around the world, including here in western Washington. Many local Jews were once or twice removed from the victims of Oct. 7, including Seattle rabbi Daniel Weiner.
Weiner sat down with us in the weeks after the attack, stunned by the horror and carnage and devastated by the almost immediate rise in antisemitism that followed.
He went on the record to reflect on what’s been lost and gained over the past year.
Joyce Taylor: A lot of us remember where we were on Oct. 7, a year ago. What do you remember about that day?
Weiner: I remember I woke up and it was a sabbath morning, but it also was on the cusp of one of the key Jewish holidays, simchat torah, the holiday that celebrates the end and the beginning of the annual cycle of reading the Torah, the five books of Moses. And just began to get some social media from friends in Israel.
At first, this can't be right. This is not really happening in this way. This must be some kind of mistake.
Taylor: 1,200 people were killed that day. 250 hostages were taken and a year later, 100 people are still being held hostage.
Weiner: We hope. We hope. I mean, many of them are probably dead. Some of them may be alive.
Taylor: How frustrating is that for you?
Weiner: It's immensely frustrating. It's incredibly frustrating for so many people, not least of which the people, the family members, who still have loved ones there that almost a year hence, they're still there, languishing in captivity. I think everybody recognizes the need to bring the hostages home and to do virtually anything that needs to be done to make that happen.
Taylor: Why do you think it has lasted so long unlike any previous wars?
Weiner: I think primarily, Israel is fighting a war in scope and at a level that no other country has had to fight in this way. To fight an enemy that designs their strategy to ramp up the death and destruction of their own people, to hide in tunnels, to use their citizenry as human shields, specifically in a way that was designed to maximize their death and destruction
Taylor: A year ago, when we spoke, you told me that there were members of your congregation who were afraid to wear anything that identified them as Jewish. Is that still the case?
Weiner: No. It’s interesting. I'm finding much more the other kind of experience, which is that people are doubling down on their Jewish identity, that they're wearing stars of David, that they're wearing medallions that talk about returning the hostages.
Taylor: Antisemitism is still alive and well. I know that over the last year, there still has been a dramatic rise. The Anti-Defamation League reported Washington state had the 15th highest number of incidents in the nation, nearly 200 last year. Do you still feel the undercurrents of that?
Weiner: Jews here in the Pacific Northwest feel beleaguered and kind of under attack from kind of multiple places, from both, at least both ends of the spectrum, in ways that perhaps are not as evident in other communities.
Taylor: Is it disheartening for you?
Weiner: It's extremely disheartening for me. I think we had this sense, particularly for the Jewish experience here in the United States, that we were going to benefit from the sense of inclusion, in the sense of openness, in the sense of empathy and understanding and sensitivity that seemed to be happening and permeating our society, and the fact that it feels like in so many ways, that's true for everyone, and Jews are the exception, is disheartening.
Taylor: Last year you told me that different groups of the community that you thought had been very supportive and allies to the Jewish community didn't show up for you. A year later, do you still feel that way?
Weiner: Well, I still feel that way, but I have more clarity.
Taylor: Who did show up for you, and who didn't?
Weiner: Amongst many others, members of the black church community really stood with us, pretty solidly. I think one of the most heartbreaking disconnects, in some ways it's understandable, in some ways it's not, is with the Muslim community. I think there are folks within that community, and it's heartbreaking to say who have trafficked in messaging that goes beyond criticism of Israel, but really veers into contributions to an antisemitic climate in this country, and that's painfully ironic and tragic on so many levels.
Taylor: You would agree that some of the frustration around this war has been the death toll among Palestinians. The health ministry there reports some 40,000 deaths. Some say the number is lower. Some say the number is higher. The Lancet Journal says the number could be as high as 180,000 plus because of disease and living conditions. So how do you reconcile the impact of this last year on the Palestinian people?
Weiner: I don't know if reconcile is the right word. It's a horrific tragedy what’s happened to the Palestinian people. I blame Hamas for inflicting self, inflicting, within the spirit of martyrdom, this tragedy upon their own people…, and from the attack through how they are conducting the war in tunnels, using their own people as human shields, deliberately sacrificing a generation that they feel is an acceptable sacrifice, if decades down the road, it helps them to achieve their goal of eradicating Israel and wiping out, wiping it out of all of its Jews.
Taylor: Clearly, we are at a different place in this war than we were a year ago. When you look at what's happening in the north and back and forth with Lebanon now, is this an expansion of the war? Are we already there?
Weiner: People who have seen this as one giant war are most accurate. Israel cannot continue and survive when the northern third of its country is uninhabitable, but I think looming in the background, and I think that it is a threat, not only to Israel, but in many ways, Israel is on the front lines of a much larger conflict with Iran, and by extension in some ways, Russia and North Korea.
Taylor: If they're able to reach a cease-fire, if we can see an end to this war, what kind of future do you see in Israel?
Weiner: I hope and pray for a future in Israel where they can transcend some of the significant civil divides within their country that they can come together around the common principles and common identities they share and that those that remain on the extremes will be so marginalized and so isolated that they will be disempowered to inflict the kind of harm and damage they've been inflicting.
Taylor: You are just one person, and I’m wondering what has been the most difficult for you over the past year, and how do you stay hopeful and optimistic.
Weiner: I think the hardest thing has been to compartmentalize my own feelings of anxiety, threat, pain, loss, lament, grief, mourning, from the role that I want to play and the impact I want to have within my community and beyond my community. You know, one has to learn to kind of do what you need to do when you're out in the world and reflect on your dark nights of the soul when you're home with your family who gives you wonderful support as a person. In terms of optimism, I think really, hope is really what I what I feel more because hope is inevitable. That sense of hope helps us to endure the tragedy. That sense of tragedy gives us perspective about the value and the preciousness of hope.