Tenafly shul remembers victims of October 7
On October 12, congregants and friends of Temple Sinai of Bergen County gathered to remember the 1,200 people killed when Hamas attacked in Israel on October 7, 2023. Rabbi Jordan Millstein and Cantor Nitza Shamah led the ceremony, which included memorial prayers. Participants laid 1,200 small Israeli flags in a coffin that was placed in a newly created memorial garden outside the Tenafly synagogue.
The accompanying memorial plaque reads “This garden is dedicated in memory of those who were murdered on Oct. 7, 2023 and those who perished in the war that followed. In the days after the attack, our community displayed 1,200 flags, each one representing one of the victims. Buried here are those flags. May their memories be for a blessing.”
“A week after October 7, we thought about what we could do as a community to show our support for Israel,” Rabbi Millstein said. “Our religious school students put 1,200 Israeli flags around the temple’s perimeter. We decided to bury them on the October 7 anniversary but we changed the date to October 12, after hearing the Kaplen JCC in Tenafly had a large memorial planned that day. Since most of the temple land here is undeveloped, we decided not only to bury the flags but to create a memorial garden around them.”
Other program highlights included the rabbi talking about how Temple Sinai hosted 20 high school seniors from the Moshav Netiv Ha’Asara Kibbutz, which is near the Israeli border closest to Gaza; Abigail Inglis reading the names of 20 members of the community of Moshav Netiv HaAsara who were killed; and attendees reciting the Kaddish and singing Hatikvah.
Jocelyn Inglis, the shul’s executive director, Lynne Stewart, its president, and Tenafly’s Mayor, Mark Zinna, also were there. “One of the hostages being held in Gaza, Edan Alexander, is from Tenafly,” Mr. Zinna said. “We want to bring all the hostages home.”
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