Biden participates in a memorial candle-lighting for Oct. 7 victims

Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

US President Joe Biden participates in a memorial candle-lighting ceremony to mark the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.

He is joined by First Lady Jill Biden and Rabbi Aaron Alexander of Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, who is a family friend of slain American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

Alexander recites the “El Malei Rachamim” prayer, a traditional Jewish prayer often heard at funerals and on the anniversary of a death.

The rabbi prays for “the souls of the holy ones, men, women, and children who were killed on October the seventh.”

“For this we pray for the ascent of their souls, may they rest in the Garden of Eden,” he says. “May their souls be bound up in the bond of everlasting life.”

Biden then lights a yahrzeit candle, briefly crosses himself, and walks out of the White House Blue Room without engaging with reporters present.

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