'Incredibly painful': Toronto's Jewish community marking one year since Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel

Toronto’s Jewish community is coming together to mourn and is calling for allyship as it marks one year since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel that triggered a war that is still raging on.

Toronto’s Jewish community is coming together to mourn and is calling for allyship as it marks one year since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel that triggered a war that is still raging on.

“This is an incredibly painful day for the Jewish community in Toronto, but also the Jewish community around the world,” Sara Lefton, chief development officer at UJA Federation, told reporters at a news conference Monday morning ahead of a planned vigil in North York that is expected to draw tens of thousands of people.

It was early in the morning a year ago that Hamas militants stormed into Israel, attacking families in their homes and participants at a music festival in the desert. The attacks left some 1,200 Israeli civilians dead, while Hamas took around 250 others as hostages, including elderly people and small children.

Eight Canadians were killed in the Oct. 7 attack: Tiferet Lapidot, Judih Weinstein, Vivian Silver, Shir Georgy, Adi Vital-Kaploun, Netta Epstein, Alexandre Look, and Ben Mizrachi.

Local residents who lost family members and loved ones in the attack, and some who still have family members being held, spoke out in Toronto Monday.

“It’s incredibly difficult to reconcile that a year has already passed,” Toronto resident Maureen Leshem told CP24 Breakfast. Leshem’s cousin, Romi Gonen, was abducted from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7 and is still being held hostage in Gaza.

“On the one hand, it feels like it was just yesterday, and in the same moment, it feels like an eternity ago. The fear and the confusion and the shock of that day is still so fresh, because Romi is still being held against her will, and there are so many unknowns, so many questions and very little answers.”