Huge alternative Oct. 7 memorial ceremony to be held in Tel Aviv; state event in Ofakim
Tens of thousands expected at Yarkon Park gathering to be emceed by Hanoch Daum and Rotem Sela, include speeches by bereaved families, relatives of hostages, Gaza border residents
Tens of thousands of Israelis are expected to attend an alternative ceremony marking the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 onslaught that is being organized by the victims of the attack who do not want to participate in the official event being organized by the government.
The alternative October 7 memorial ceremony will be held at Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park and will be co-emceed by Hanoch Daum and Rotem Sela.
Daum announced Thursday that he would host the ceremony while Sela was announced by Channel 12 on Sunday as his co-emcee.
“On October 7, I will stand with the bereaved families, the families of hostages, and the communities that are in pain, for an evening of remembrance and hope,” Sela said.
Speeches are expected to be made by bereaved families, former hostages, and residents of the Gaza border communities, while “the best Israeli artists” are expected to perform.
The list of artists has not yet been published, but singers Idan Amedi and Aviv Gefen have expressed support for the ceremony on social media in recent days. Amedi was seriously injured while performing reserve duty in Gaza in January.
Families of hostages and other victims of October 7 have fumed at the government’s decision to charge Transportation Minister Miri Regev with organizing the state event.
Regev dismissed the criticism as “noise” and compared the idea of holding other tribute ceremonies to a contentious annual joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony, which is demonized by the Israeli right.
After the press conference in which Regev made those statements, Daum wrote on Facebook, “After hearing Miri Regev’s insulting and painful remarks, I took it upon myself to emcee the bereaved and hostages’ families’ remembrance ceremony. I spoke with the ceremony’s organizers, and I promise that it will be a stately, all-Israeli, uniting ceremony that will make room for pain and Israeli remembrance. Just as our heroes fought together that awful Saturday, so we will stand together, from the left and the right, religious people and secular people, in a united embrace in their memory.”
Daum is an Israeli writer, actor, and comedian who lives in the West Bank settlement of Elazar. He has a weekly column in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper where he usually writes about lighthearted subjects but sometimes expresses political right-leaning opinions.
Sela is an Israeli actress and presenter who has in the past expressed support for progressive causes and has criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Several Gaza border communities have accused the government of using the official ceremony to avoid responsibility for the role it played in failing to prevent Hamas terror assault, and for failing the communities in the aftermath of the massacre. Many of them announced that they will not participate in Regev’s ceremony.
Last week, President Isaac Herzog offered to replace the government’s ceremony with one under his purview at the President’s Residence that would be devoid of politics and include uniting state symbols, but Regev accused him of “picking a side” and insisted that she would be the one to organize the ceremony.
Amedi on Sunday had urged Regev to accept Herzog’s suggestion, encouraging her to “talk to the prime minister, accept President Herzog’s compromise for a single and unifying ceremony at the President’s Residence, without politics.”
Nevertheless, Regev appeared to reject the suggestion, and her office said in a statement on Tuesday that the ceremony would be held in the southern city of Ofakim.
Responding to reports that she was weighing the option of holding the ceremony in front of an audience and broadcasting it live — in contrast to the original decision to hold it without an audience — Regev’s office said that “there has been no change in the format of the ceremony for the State of Israel and its citizens.”
The government’s planned October 7 ceremony memorializing the victims of the terror onslaught, in which Hamas-led terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, will not be live-streamed but instead filmed and televised later or available on demand so as not to clash with smaller local memorial events that may be held on the same day.
Regev said last Thursday that the event will be held in the south because that is where the massacre took place. It will also be held without an audience so as to avoid offending anyone who should have been there and wasn’t invited, considering it would be impossible to seat all the victims, their families, and the people who fought or took heroic action on October 7.
