Memory squared – how our daily vigils in Brighton turned grief into hope

But that night it became something else entirely.

The temptation, after horror, is to retreat behind fortified doors and walls, cameras and guards. And who could fault us? The day after my cousin Tsachi’s daughter, Ma’ayan – just 18 – was murdered and Tsachi abducted to Gaza, a Palestine Solidarity Campaign rally in our city praised the massacre as “inspiring” and “beautiful.” Whatever grief, shock, and anguish we carried, we knew we couldn’t surrender the public square to cheerleaders for terrorism.

So, we unbolted the doors of our hearts and stepped outside of our inner anxieties. We read the names of the murdered, slowly, one by one. I read Ma’ayan’s name aloud – a moment so painful I physically shuddered. There were so many others, it took hours. And then we read them again, because new people arrived who needed to hear them, and new breezes blew that would carry our words aloft.

We returned the next day, and then again, the day after. Days turned to weeks. Weeks to months. And so here we are… what began as a vigil became something larger: a memorial that would last nearly two years. Each evening, we dedicated to a victim of that grim seventh of ten.

At first it was simply a way to process the horror together, to shoulder each other’s pain, and to preserve the truth and humanity of the victims. We were chronicling a dark chapter in our history, investigating a crime, and interrogating our soul.

Through the wet and bitter cold, we faced jeers from balaclava-clad passersby. Sometimes we were very few, yet still we gathered, speaking of lives cut short whose light, like novas, burned incandescently bright. We did not curse the dark; we lit candles to undark it.

Palmeira Square October 7 memorial (Photo: Heidi Bachram)[Missing Credit]

What sustained us was the refusal to look away from the horror. In a world haemorrhaging and afflicted with a fever of forgetting, every candle, every psalm, every photograph is a clenched fist against the void. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote that history answers what happened, while memory answers who we are. At Palmeira Square, we answered both – historical truth = memory2.

There were moments that will never leave me: a group of teenagers pausing their chatter to ask if they could hold candles; a kindly neighbour who lights a candle nightly for the hostages; the leaders of Progressive Judaism reading our lamentation; the Chief Rabbi and Lady Mirvis leading us in prayer and tying yellow ribbons to trees; the family members and friends of victims and hostages and survivors who came to dedicate to the precious loved ones they lost with us.

There are stars whose light reaches the earth only when they themselves are gone. And so, there are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living – Hannah Szenes

We faced abuse, threats, and vandalism – the memorial was destroyed five times. But we are a people of purpose. Persistent, defiant, uncowed. We rebuilt, because we come from a long line of builders. Together, we built something beautiful.

And it did not end at the square. We unfurled a giant yellow ribbon on the Hove seafront. Projected the faces of hostages onto the Brighton cliffs. Held events and services in all of our synagogues, community centres, and at the square. We leafleted, wrote, spoke, marched. Because remembering is not only looking back – it propels us forward, infusing our every word and deed.
Hannah Szenes, executed at 23 for resisting the Nazis, wrote: “There are stars whose light reaches the earth only when they themselves are gone. And so, there are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living.” That brilliance shines still – through grief, through resilience, through defiantly stubborn, unmistakably Jewish, hope. It is why we end every service with HaTikvah – The Hope.

Now Palmeira Square is closing for redevelopment. At our final service, over 150 people joined us, including families of victims, friends from Israel, London, Hertfordshire, and Wales. Flowers and donations generously arrived from across the Atlantic. Together we paid tribute first and foremost to nearly 1,200 men, women, and children, to 48 remaining hostages, but also to a small but mighty community determined to keep their memories alive. We ended with everyone taking away anemones and memorial candles to bring the memorial into their homes and to enable them to participate from afar.

We close this chapter, but not the book. The vigil continues, now outside the front of Brighton & Hove Reform Synagogue on Palmeira Avenue. Every Friday at 6:30, we will gather to speak their names, tell their stories, and keep their memory alive. All are welcome.

Memory breathes. It insists and it persists. And so must we. We close this chapter and write the next one anew. Together.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Adam Ma’anit is a British-Israel campaigner, speaker, and co-organiser of the Palmeira Memorial Group and communications manager at the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Subscribe to the Palmeira Memorial Newsletter to receive each day’s dedication and participate in honouring their lives from wherever you are. Subscribe at: palmeiras-newsletter.beehiiv.com/