By Leah Garber
It has been three years—1,096 days—since a dark curtain fell over Israel, changing the face of this land and its people forever.
These have been three years of rupture and crisis and searing pain and clinging grief that hasn’t let go—a national trauma that has touched every one of us. Three years have passed, and the longest day in Israel’s history has still not truly seen daylight.
And yet, through it all, we have seen real light—kindness, outstretched hands, and demonstrations of peoplehood, unprecedented solidarity, and humanity. Even as an entire nation was swept into internal strife, bitter political conflict, and mounting despair, that light kept breaking through the fog. It’s what I hold onto and what gives me hope.
Light, by its nature, spreads. It reaches into every corner and wraps people in warmth. And that has been the finest comfort the JCC Movement has offered during the past three years, even as the war’s second front and antisemitism and Jew hatred spread rapidly across the world.
With no political or partisan affiliations and no ties to a particular religious stream, JCCs welcome all Jews and their allies, offering community, a sense of belonging, a home.
On the morning of October 8, 2023, while it was still Simchat Torah in North America and Jews there were in shock, the JCC Movement responded the way it always does in moments of crisis: “Hineinu.” | “Here we are.” As always, our movement demonstrated real leadership in hard times—standing beside Israel and her citizens in their darkest hour, bowing its head to honor the victims, and mobilizing overnight to offer a safe space to be together to grieve, embrace, and comfort each other. Shortly thereafter, a wave of meaningful programming and activity quickly swept across the Movement.
Almost immediately, JCC Association mobilized its Mit-habrim initiative—launched just days before October 7—to support JCCs across the U.S. and Canada during this time of need. In response, the JCCs conceived, organized, and implemented more than 950 events during the last three years, reaching roughly 850,000 community members, many of whom attended Israel-focused events for the first time. Nearly every JCC in our network benefited from close to $2.5 million in Mit-habrim funding, augmented by several million dollars more that were more broadly channeled through the initiative—all aimed at strengthening communal activities in JCCs and JCC Camps, helping them do what they do best: keep Israel engagement front and center as a foundational pillar of the JCC Movement.
We asked JCCs to share photos and stories from the events they hosted, and what we received told the same story again and again. The words and pictures conveyed an overwhelming sense of belonging and Jewish peoplehood that knows no geographic boundary. Our members felt safe within the walls of their JCCs, finding refuge and a place they could grieve together and know they weren’t alone.
While that comfort and solidarity carried community members through those turbulent days, the Israeli guests they hosted throughout the years have been wrapped in the very same warmth. Many hostage families visited communities across the continent and shared their unbearable reality, including that their every breath was a stark reminder that their loved ones in Hamas’s captivity could barely breathe air that was thin, stale, and steeped in hatred. Those families returned home to Israel overwhelmed by JCCs’ welcome and hospitality, the sense of shared fate conveyed during their visit, and the comfort that comes from knowing that people who were once strangers now carried the families’ loved ones in their hearts and prayers.
Israeli artists—moved by the horrors they had witnessed—created, wrote, photographed, and sang about loss and grief. They felt at home in the communities they visited, and through the universal language of art, bridged real distance and brought our North American Jewish communities closer to Israel.
Despite the risks of war and limited flights, solidarity missions were full of community members who traveled to Israel to bear witness by volunteering on farms, visiting the wounded, and bringing true, heartfelt comfort to every Israeli they met. Time and time again, when they asked how they could help, the answer was the same: Thank you. Thank you for coming. That, more than anything, was the gesture we needed most.
As in the previous two years, more than 80% of JCCs are once again marking this solemn third anniversary of October 7, but this year, the focus has shifted somewhat. It is less on the ongoing war and more on the significance of October 7 itself. Previous commemorations brought Israeli speakers, survivors, and artists into the conversations; this year, most JCCs are turning instead to film screenings and exhibits.
These last three years have left deep marks on me. I keep thinking about what it would have meant if it had been me, or someone I love, dragged to Gaza that day. How would I have survived the brutality, the isolation, the dark? With every prayer I recite, I wonder how many of the words I’d have known by heart if I’d been a hostage—words powerful enough to plant hope and give strength. Every meal I cook carries me, for a moment, to the hunger that defined the hostages’ days in captivity. Every holiday brings back the sight of far too many empty chairs at beautifully set tables, chairs that for some families will remain empty forever. These thoughts are hard to escape.
Even now, as we mark three years since our country was shattered, the memorials never seem to end, and the memories all come rushing back: The beautiful, innocent faces of murdered children, the names of those brutally tortured to death, soldiers killed in battle. It feels as though they hover above us—bright stars filling the sky, a constant reminder of how many are missing—twinkling down from far above upon those left behind to mourn them.
But these three years have taught me more than sorrow alone. They’ve shown me the full power and breadth of Jewish solidarity—here in Israel, in Jewish communities around the world, and in my second home, the JCC Movement in North America.
These years have changed the JCC Movement itself as well, deepening its commitment to heritage, identity, and the Jewish and Zionist values that make it clear that ours is a movement that was built with Jewish peoplehood at its core. So, even though the weight of our grief hasn’t lifted and the sun has yet to fully rise, the light that does break through gives all of us real hope for better days—days of peace, days of healing, and days of unity.
Leah Garber is a senior vice president of JCC Association of North America and director of its Center for Israel Engagement in Jerusalem.