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An Upper West Sider is trying to start a communal ‘Hatikvah’ tradition
(New York Jewish Week) – As a nurse anesthesiologist, Elan Esterson was moved by the shows of support from his neighbors during the scariest days of the pandemic, when they would open their windows to clap and cheer in appreciation for health care workers.
So this week, when he was thinking about how to support Israel after its deadly invasion by Hamas, he envisioned a similar kind of gesture.
“Please open your window or go to your rooftop and sing Hatikvah in unison with all of your NYC neighbors,” he wrote on a flier that he posted online and sent to Jewish organizations, exhorting everyone who got it to pass it along.
Esterson’s idea is that New Yorkers will join together in a communal singing of “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem, on Friday at 6 p.m. Esterson plans to take part from his home on the Upper West Side, but he has grander visions for the gesture.
“I’m just one person trying to reach as many people as possible in a very short amount of time,” he told the New York Jewish Week. “I would love for it to go nationwide. Worldwide.”
Esterson was inspired in part by looking at different ways communities around the world are responding to the crisis in Israel. “Hatikvah” has been sung at pro-Israel rallies across the world, from New York to London to Tokyo, but a video of a more homegrown rendition, in an Israeli neighborhood, went viral — racking more than 1.6 million views so far on TikTok.
Valerie Gerstein, a Jewish mother and Columbia University graduate student, shared the flier on Facebook and said she plans to participate on Friday evening.
“It is brilliant,” she said. “Just as Israel led us with the communal support for healthcare and essential workers during COVID lockdowns, they are leading us in how to respond to this terror.”
Esterson said this is the first time he’s ever organized a public call to action, and he was moved to do so because he was raised with a “very deep belief system in Judaism and the State of Israel.” As a high school student in Baltimore, he traveled to Israel to support Jewish families that moved out of Gaza after Israel pulled out in 2005, volunteering in cities including Ofakim, which was targeted in this week’s Hamas attack. (“What we did was a very little thing,” he said at the time. “But it meant so much to the people.”)
“I was brought up to protect the State of Israel and to do whatever I can to give back to the country that will do everything for me as well,” Esterson said.
Esterson said he’d be happy if the communal singing doesn’t become a sustained tradition like the health care-workers applause, which happened nightly for months in 2020. But he is following the news reports suggesting that Israel is preparing to invade Gaza in response to the assault, and has heard Israeli leaders say to expect a prolonged war.
“Hopefully, this is the last time we have to do it,” Esterson said about the “Hatikvah” singalong. “But I have a feeling we’re going to have to do it again.”
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The post An Upper West Sider is trying to start a communal ‘Hatikvah’ tradition appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.