'I feel very sad, I'm very angry': Oct. 7 still taking its toll on B.C.'s Jewish community

Vancouverite Rutie Mizrahi's aunt and uncle were kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. One year later, she holds out hope for the remaining hostages. (CTV News)

Outside Rutie Mizrahi’s Vancouver home hang blue and white lights on her front porch doorway. They were put up and turned on one year ago, and haven’t been turned off since.

“I said that I’m not going to turn them off until all the hostages will be safe at home,” said Mizrahi, an Israeli-Canadian.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Mizrahi’s aunt and uncle were taken by Hamas fighters from Kibbutz Nir Oz, located near the Israel-Gaza border.

“I feel very sad,” said Mizrahi, telling CTV News how she’s feeling on the grim one-year anniversary. “I’m very angry.”

The Kibbutz was burned and many people were either killed or kidnapped. Her aunt Yocheved Lifshitz was released early on in the war, but her 84-year-old uncle Oded remains among the more than 100 hostages whose whereabouts are unknown.

Mizrahi says she thinks about her uncle “every day.” She says he was a retired journalist who was sympathetic to the Palestinians in Gaza, even escorting cancer patients from the strip to Israeli hospitals for treatment.

She says she’s hanging on to a fading belief for her uncle to return home.

“All we have to do now is to hope and pray for a miracle,” said Mizrahi, who was supposed to be in Israel during this time but isn’t able to fly due to the ongoing conflict.

Jewish school honours former student 

Oct. 7 also marked an emotional day at King David High School, a private Jewish school in Vancouver.

Students and staff spent the day dedicated to healing and honouring the many lives lost and impacted, including the death of former student Ben Mizrachi, who was killed while attending the Nova Music Festival.

“Even to the very end, you know, he was always about helping others,” said Stephen Berger, head of Jewish Studies.

Mizrachi was reportedly killed while tending to a friend who had been shot.

“He was known as a man of the people,” said Seth Goldsweig, King David principal. “Other people talked about how the moments that they were with him seemed to be the most important moment in his life at that moment. They really felt that he listened to them and heard them.”

The school unveiled a plaque dedicated to Mizrachi, and also created a shrine to honour the hundreds of people killed in the attack.

“The ceremony was a day of reflection and a day to be together, to sort of come together as a community on an anniversary of a very hard day,” said Goldsweig.