AMHERST — Two years into the war against Hamas, Israel is a tale of two cities, says Holocaust survivor Henia “Henny” Lewin, an Amherst resident who recently attended a wedding in Israel.
Lewin joined 20 Jewish worshippers on Tuesday at the Jewish Community of Amherst, along with another dozen people attending online, to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel by Hamas that ignited the war that now enters its third year.
Some 250 people, including children, were captured by Hamas and other groups and taken into Gaza. As of Oct. 8, 2025, around 20 of them are still believed to be alive. Lewin on Tuesday read the names of those hostages during the commemorative service, noting that their faces are the first thing people flying into Israel see.
“As soon as you arrive at the airport, you already see the pictures and yellow banners of the hostages. It really gets to you,” she said.
The Jewish Federation of Western Massachusetts hosted the event in Amherst and a similar one at Temple Beth El in Springfield to remember what they called “the largest massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust.” The events sought to memorialize the roughly 1,200 people killed two years ago and included calls for the return of the hostages.
The service included a series of prayers and reflections that lasted some 45 minutes.
Kathy Pollard came for the service, “Because I love the land of Israel. It’s a land for Jews, it’s a land for Palestinians, and everyone deserves the dignity of freedom and living in peace.”
HenaSusha Schiffman of Sunderland was there “to honor the tragedy” that is occurring for both sides of the conflict.
“People are suffering. I don’t want any war and killing people,” she said.
She acknowledges the anger on both sides but warned against striking back with an “eye for an eye.”
After the service, Lewin reflected on her two-week trip to Israel. She said during that time, two sirens went off calling on people to take shelter. One was at 4 a.m. when it was announced that Israel was being attacked by the Houthis in Yemen.
But she said she was being told, “That it’s not a serious attack. It’s not from Iran.”
Houthi strikes began last month, and Israel has responded with strikes of their own.
Lewin, who was staying in the northern part of Israel, said the country activated its Iron Dome air defense system in the southern part of the country while she was there. But despite the obvious pressure that Israel is under, this doesn’t change the pace of daily life for many Israelis, said Lewin.
“The feeling I had in Israel is that it’s two countries — like people in the states, with people to the left and people to the right,” she said.
“People are in restaurants. People are in cafes, and they try to go on with life,” she said. “They just go to work, go to a restaurant in the evening. Young people go dancing on the weekends. There’s so many people that just don’t watch the news. They pretend like Gaza is a million miles away like we do in the states.”
Optimism surrounds peace talks
Meanwhile, talks aimed at brokering peace in the region are ongoing. U.S. President Donald Trump’s top adviser for the Middle East and other senior officials joined the third day of peace talks between Israel and Hamas in an Egyptian resort on Wednesday, a sign that negotiators aim to dive deeply into the toughest issues of an American plan to end the war in Gaza.
Hamas says it’s seeking firm guarantees from Trump and mediators that Israel won’t resume its military campaign in the Palestinian territory after the militant group releases all the remaining hostages.
All sides have expressed optimism for a deal to end the two-year war that has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and most of the Gaza Strip destroyed. But key parts of the peace plan still haven’t been agreed to, including a requirement that Hamas disarm, the timing and extent of an Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza, and the creation of an international body to run the territory after Hamas steps down.
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, arrived Wednesday at Sharm el-Sheikh for the discussions, as did Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top adviser, Ron Dermer.
Trump’s peace plan calls for an immediate ceasefire and release of the hostages. It envisions Israel withdrawing its troops from Gaza after Hamas disarms, and an international security force moving in. The territory would be placed under international governance, with Trump and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair overseeing it.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said Wednesday in televised comments that the negotiations so far “were very encouraging.”
Netanyahu has accepted Trump’s plan. His office said Tuesday that Israel was “cautiously optimistic,” framing the talks as technical negotiations over a plan that both sides already had approved.
In a statement Tuesday, Hamas reiterated its longstanding demands for a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, but said nothing about disarmament, a step it has long resisted. Hamas has also spoken against the idea of international rule, though it has agreed it will have no role in governing post-war Gaza.
Material from the Associate Press was used in this report.