Connection, Conversation, Understanding: Journalist Bari Weiss on How We Can Commemorate October 7

On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists stormed through the Gaza border and waged the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. It was a massacre that set in motion a year of violence in the Middle East and turmoil here in the U.S. as well.

Since then, journalist Bari Weiss, founder and editor of The Free Press, has been on a mission to tell the truth about that catastrophic day and its aftermath. This week, The Sunday Paper sat down with Weiss to get her perspective on the anniversary of October 7—how she’ll observe it, what’s important to remember, and what’s giving her hope for the future.

A CONVERSATION WITH BARI WEISS

It’s nearly a year since October 7th. Can you help us conceptualize what this day means—and how we should talk about it?

October 7th was many things: It was the single worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. It was the beginning of a war between Israel and Iran (through its proxies, and now with the Islamic Republic itself) that shows no signs of abating. It was a litmus test for the civilized world—a test that many have failed.

But above all, I think, it was a reminder that we are not outside of history. We are not immune to it. We are inside of it. We shape it. And that free societies like ours and like Israel’s are only as strong as the people willing to defend it. 

The young generation of Israelis has risen magnificently to the challenge. Would Americans, if faced with a similar threat? The answer to that is not clear.

We are now living in a country in which, beginning on October 8th, people across the country shout on behalf terrorists who raped and burned and slaughtered. You have people walking on the streets of New York City waving the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah. Imagine if that happened on September 12^th, 2001, and the rest of the year that followed. It would have been incomprehensible. 

So how should we talk about it? Truthfully. As a just war. As a battle against genocidal terrorists. As a fight between good and evil, between civilization and barbarism, between the liberal order and those who want to burn it down. 

How will you observe October 7th? How might all of us commemorate this day in a meaningful way?

There has not been a day since October 7th where I have not been thinking about the 101 hostages who remain, today, in Hamas captivity. So I will think about them and pray for their liberation.

There are also two books I have on my desk. One is by the Israeli journalist Lee Yaron. It’s called 10/7: 100 Human Stories. It's not about politics. It's not about military strategy. It's about the people who Hamas erased. For people looking for a way to commemorate this horrible day, picking that book up might be one way to do it.  The other is by the Israeli journalist Amir Tibon, called The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel's Borderlands. Tibon was trapped with his children and his wife inside their kibbutz on October 7th. His, a 61-year-old retired Israeli general, rescued them. It’s an unforgettable story.

Putting the human beings in the center of a story that has become so noisy and so politicized feels morally important to me. 

The other thing I’m going to do is what we try to do every day at The Free Press: report the truth. Pursue the story. Covering this war abroad and the war at home and making sense of what it means for our readers—and for ourselves. 

Where do we go from here, given the escalation of war in the middle east and the continued rise of antisemitism here at home and around the world? What can we all do to be part of making things better? 

I was so moved by the actress Patricia Heaton who recently put up a mezuzah on her doorpost. She's not Jewish, but she put it up on her door in solidarity with Jews who have frankly felt scared here at home and in diaspora communities around the world. 

One of my dear friends, Caitlin Flanagan—you’ll know her name from her brilliant work at The Atlantic—has worn a Star of David around her neck since October 8. There is no way to adequately capture how impactful and strengthening this is for those of us in the Jewish community.

The other thing I would say—and this, I worry, has gotten lost—is that standing up against antisemitism means standing up for America and American values. 

There's a reason this country has been an exceptional diaspora for Jews. There's a reason we have flourished here. It’s because American ideals at their core are completely harmonious with Jewish ones. The idea of judging people as individuals and not based on their group identity. The idea that we don't hold people either guilty or in an elevated way for the merits or the sins of their parents. The idea that we judge people by the content of their character. The idea of equality under the law. Of equality itself. These are things that are under assault in America. And when those things are under assault, it shouldn't surprise us that Jews come under assault as well.

Fighting for those ideals, fighting for the truth, and resisting easy explanations of the world that flatten us into two dimensional groups in which some of us are victims and some of us are victimizers—these are things worth fighting for. 

The last thing I would say: It’s extremely important that we know the facts on the ground; what is actually going on. I think about how much more we’re now able to see and read thanks to independent journalism.

Is there something you hope we will talk about on October 7 that will give us hope that the year ahead can be better than the year that has passed?

The first thing is perspective. Remembering that peace, safety, and security—the things we are able to take for granted at least most of the time in the West—are the historical exception. 

Many people—not just in other times, but in other places right now in the world—are so far from that reality. We live in such abundance that we forget that. My friend and Free Press columnist Douglas Murray says that the West is “drunk on peace.” I think there’s a lot of truth in that.

People feel like the election is dire and that so much hangs in the balance, and I'm not dismissing any of that. I'm just saying when it comes to what could be versus what we have, what we have is really precious. It needs to be protected and guarded and fought for because it's not like gravity or oxygen. It can go away. October 7th shows that.

At the end of the day, though, I don't think you can be a Jew in the 21st century and not fundamentally be an optimist. If you look at our history, the fact that we're still around, the fact that we have a sovereign state after thousands of years of exile, the fact that this week we celebrated the Jewish new year and stood in synagogue repeating words our ancestors uttered. You don’t need to believe in God to marvel at that miracle.

Bari Weiss is the founder and editor of The Free Press. She is the host of the podcast Honestly, and is the winner of the LA Press Club's 2021 Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity in Journalism. Her first book, "How to Fight Anti-Semitism," was the winner of a 2019 National Jewish Book Award.