On first day Sukkot, corresponding with 7 October 2025, many more than normal congregated to hear an address after the service by our member Jacqueline Fine who has been working tirelessly with UJIA supporting people in Israel affected by this tragedy.
Many of us were moved to tears by Jacqui’s words, spoken from personal experience and from the heart:
Rabbi, Ladies & Gentleman, Family & Friends
October 7, 2023, is a date etched into the soul of our people.
On that day, Israel endured the darkest and deadliest attack onJews since the Holocaust.
At the Nova music festival, thousands of young people gathered, full of life and excitement – until everything was stolen.
What those innocents faced instead was terror on a scale we could never have imagined – rockets falling from the sky, bullets on the ground, men and women brutally raped and mutilated.
Across nearby kibbutzim, entire families were slaughtered in their homes. Communities built in peace and purpose were destroyed.
Over 250 hostages were dragged into Gaza – babies, children, parents, the elderly, holocaust survivors.
Over 1200 innocents murdered. Hundreds more wounded with life changing injuries.
It’s hard to find the words that match the depth of this pain. It’s hard to comprehend the scale of the loss.
And yet – we must remember.
Not just what happened, but who it happened to. Each person lost that day, had a name, a face, a family. Each one leaves behind a gaping absence in the lives of those who loved them. Their only crime was being Jewish in their homeland.
As a former Chair of UJIA Womens Division and part of a global initiative called Lions of Judah I decided to join a mission to show my support to Israel and their people.
I walked through the devastation of Kibbutz Be’eri.
I saw what was left of homes where families once laughed.
I stood in front of a preschool, where children’s drawings were still on the walls, blackened by fire and ash.
At the Nova memorial site, I stood before photographs of the young – those who went to dance and never came home. That field, once a place of celebration, is now sacred ground. Covered in flowers, photos, mementoes.
It feels like a vast cemetery, a wasteland of stolen youth.
I met and hugged a young, bereaved mother, who sits EVERY DAY beside the yellow dumpster skip where her daughter was brutally slaughtered. Her precious girl who desperately tried to survive by hiding beneath the bloodied bodies of her friends and fellow partygoers. She sits on a bench, shattered and exhausted, wearing a t-shirt with her daughters beautiful innocent face printed onto it, a never ending stream of grief and tears, quietly thanking strangers who offer their own tears of love and support.
I will never forget bearing witness to Rita, a Nova survivor, who recounted how she left her 9-month-old baby safe and sound with her mother to enjoy a night out with her husband and sister. She never imagined that for over 8 hours she would lay hidden under her injured husband and miraculously, thanks to the bravery of the IDF, be able to return to the arms of her mother and then unbelievably begin to breastfeed her precious baby boy as if it was just another normal day. She knows that none of her days will ever feel normal again.
In Tel Aviv, in Hostage Square, I walked amongst the posters, yellow ribbons, teddy bears left untouched. a piano left unplayed. A simulated tunnel constructed to give a tiny sense of the fear and agony endured by those chained, held inside cages, in tunnels under the depths of the earth.
I met the families who wait. Who plead. Who pray.
In the North of Israel, thousands were evacuated under threat from Hezbollah.
Families displaced and separated for over a year, who ran for their lives with the bare essentials.
Some have begun to return—to ruins, to broken windows, scarred homes, fractured communities.
And yet – I saw something else.
I saw people reclaiming their lives. To sift through the rubble. To salvage life. To begin again.
As a Lion of Judah, I am part of a circle of women across the globe, who have chosen not to look away. We are women who care deeply, who show up and who give, not just financial support, but love, time and energy – because we believe in building and healing.
This is the quiet power of women coming together. Of choosing compassion over apathy. Of choosing action over despair.
We are often asked: What can we do from here? Where is a safe haven for Jews? Or…. who would hide you?
And the truth is—there is no single simple answer. BUT what I know is this: every act of love matters. Every project we support, every child we help, every story we remember—it all matters.
Because the Jewish people don’t just remember tragedy. We honour it with action.
UJIA, are supporting programs across Israel that bring real help and healing to those most affected.
They fund trauma relief centres, providing therapy, emotional care, and support for families trying to find their way again.
They support educational interventions for displaced children, who have lost classroom time, structure, and stability.
They are helping to rebuild not just schools—but confidence, curiosity, and futures. They believe in giving young people a voice, a path, and a purpose, where children who have seen too much, even for a few days, can simply be children again.
They invest in youth leadership programmes – because even in pain, we can believe in potential and have faith in the future.
All of this transcends politicians and government policy. Of course, as Jews we all have an opinion, but there is no easy solution or simple answers to what is an ancient complex conflict.
DESPITE THE DEVASTATION THAT THE WAR HAS WRECKED ACROSS THE REGION – THERE IS,UNBELIEVABLY, REAL HOPE.
THERE IS A REAL SENSE OF REHABILITATION ACROSS THE NORTH AND SOUTH AND THANKS TO UJIA’S VITAL FUNDING and support, WE RETURNED FROM OUR MISSION LIKE TRUE LIONS WITH A DEEP SENSE OF PRIDE AND A RENEWED HOPE FOR THE FUTURE AND SECURITY OF ISRAEL.
This is not charity.
This is solidarity.
This is our covenant—with our people, our past, and our future.
Today, we remember the victims of October 7th—not as numbers, but as names. As families. As stories. As songs that were silenced too soon.
We remember the hostages—and we fight for their return.
We remember the displaced—and we help them rebuild.
We remember the children—and we do everything we can to protect their hope.
We remember the fallen IDF men and women who have sacrificed their lives to ensure that Israel has the right to exist and will continue to survive so that we in the diaspora can live in safety, free from terror and persecution.
And yet, the murderous attack on Jewish worshippers in Manchester last week on Yom Kippur, has left us all sadly NOT surprised BUT shaken to our very core. Devastated that the mob mentality, ignorance, propaganda and once again the evil rise of antisemitism has left us all feeling so very angry, wounded and vulnerable, but we remain resolute in showing our love and unity for peace and humanity.
We stand here today on the 2nd Anniversary of that barbaric day feeling as if our lives are suspended in time, holding our breath and fervently praying that finally a peace deal may be imminent and the release of our hostages might at last B’H become a reality.
I know as British Jews, we are even more determined to stand together united on the first day of Sukkoth, to celebrate OUR festival in OUR shul and commemorate and validate OUR proud Jewish heritage.
I know we all feel that now….
It is a time to continue with honour and pride.
It is a time for solidarity.
It is a time to stand together against hatred, anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
Let the memory of those lost be a blessing.
Am Yisrael Chai!