Three years ago today, Hamas carried out the deadliest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Nearly 1,200 people were murdered, 48 of them Americans, and more than 250 were taken hostage. Today we remember every life taken, give thanks for every hostage who made it home, and mourn those who never did.
To every family who lost someone on October 7th, we grieve with you. Survivors, hostage families, and so many New Yorkers have carried anxiety, trauma, and loss for three years. To those who have turned unimaginable pain into advocacy and service: your strength is extraordinary. You have shown all of us what it means to keep going, and to keep fighting for a better world.
Here at home, Jewish New Yorkers make up about 10 percent of our city, yet they have been the targets of more than half of all hate crimes this year. No New Yorker should have to think twice before wearing a kippah or walking to synagogue. In New York, we protect each other.
New York cannot negotiate peace in the Middle East, but we can show what it looks like. Our city is home to Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, and countless other faith communities, and every day it proves that people of different beliefs can live side by side as neighbors, with love and mutual respect.
A lasting peace will take serious leadership and patient diplomacy: real security for Israelis, real hope and rebuilding for Palestinians in Gaza, and a future both peoples can share.
New York has always shown the world what is possible. Let us do it again.
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