Hundreds show support for hostages, Israeli community at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette
LAFAYETTE – Hundreds of people gathered at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette to show their support for the hostages and the Israeli community.
Many of them have been showing up at events like this consistently for the last year.
"We're all in this together, that's what it feels like, we're all in this together," Yoav Harlev said.
Harlev is leaning on his community nearly one year after Hamas launched an attack on his home.
"I grew up in one of the communities that was attacked on October 7th," said Harlev. "In my community, we had 19 people who were brutally murdered. We still have a hostage in Gaza, he's 86 years old and my entire community was affected very significantly."
That man's photo is one of the many on a sign outside of Temple Isaiah. Sunday night the Contra Costa Jewish Community Center or JCC held a service of hope and resilience.
The service is just days after Harlev was talking with his family still in Israel.
"I had a nephew tell me earlier this week we're fighting for our survival and you are the one on the frontline, you are the one keeping the message alive," Harlev said. "Reminding the world that the hostages are still there."
That was part of the purpose of this service, organized by Yana Berger.
"We are here to come together as a community to be together to remember, to cherish, to pray for the return of the hostages and feel the strength through unity," Berger said.
Orrin Franko is a board member on the JCC. His father is Israeli and he has family in Israel. He says he hopes the non-Jewish community can learn more about their perspective.
"The biggest thing I am hoping for is for the world to understand the circumstances that Israel is in," Franko said. "Ultimately, there's a conflict that has been going on for thousands of years and to think that it's going to end any time soon is unrealistic but I do think there's been a shift in how Americans and the world views Israel and Jews in general and my hope is we can kinda change the dialogue and people can understand the challenges that Israel faces."
Despite how long the issues have persisted, Harlev had hopes that the hostages would be home by now.
"I assumed it was going to be a few weeks, a couple of months there will be a deal, the hostages will come home, we'll figure stuff out, but a year later, here we are," he said.
Despite hitting the one-year mark, he still has hope that they won't need a service like the one held on Sunday a year from now.
"I hope not, I hope not," Harlev said. "We should bring them home. We should end this."
People with the JCC say they will continue to host events until the final hostages are released.
