Where New Yorkers will commemorate the anniversary of October 7 and its aftermath

(New York Jewish Week/JTA) — Jewish institutions in New York will mark the third anniversary of Hamas’ October 7, 2023, onslaught in Israel on Wednesday, as some anti-Zionist groups prepare to hold demonstrations against the country.

About 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led invasion and massacre in southern Israel on this day three years ago, most of them civilians, with 251 taken hostage. Another 452 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the fighting since then, according to the Israel Defense Forces. In the ensuing war in Gaza, more than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. The war and its fallout have reshaped the region and reverberated around the world.

Here is a list of events around New York City to commemorate the attacks and their aftermath.

• Manhattan’s Marlene Meyerson Jewish Community Center is holding “a day of remembrance, music, and community” in its lobby, from noon until 7 p.m. “Strokes of Hope,” an exhibition of drawings by Israeli artist Zeev Engelmayer, will be on display.
• UJA-Federation of New York is launching “Rooted,” a public art installation at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, which will be on display until October 25, made up of thousands of hostage solidarity tags and pins. At 92NY on the Upper East Side, Claire Shipman — the former acting president of Columbia University — is moderating a conversation between an Israeli father, Jonathan Dekel-Chen, and a Palestinian father, Jaser AbuMoussa.
• Omer Shem Tov, a former Israeli hostage held in Gaza, will speak at Yeshiva University’s memorial at 8 p.m.
• In Brooklyn, the Park Slope Jewish Center will host an event at 7 p.m. including personal testimony from Atir Vinnikov, a survivor of the Nova music festival massacre.
• At 7 p.m. in Union Square, the group Israelis for Peace is set to meet for an evening of “quiet reflection and mourning” for the people killed on October 7, 2023, and in “its bloody aftermath.”
• A number of anti-Zionist student groups are planning walkouts on campuses across the city, including at City University of New York campuses, Columbia and NYU. The walkouts will culminate in a rally held outside City Hall at 4 p.m., organized by the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel group Pal-Awda and endorsed by a number of groups, calling on Mayor Zohran Mamdani, himself a staunch critic of Israel, to stop “[capitulating] to Zionist pressure.”