'The mood is solemn': Ottawa's Jewish community marks anniversary of Oct. 7 Hamas attack

It’s been one year since Jacqui Rivers Vital’s life changed forever.

On Oct. 7, 2023, her daughter, 33-year-old Adi Vital-Kaploun, was killed in her kibbutz near the Israel-Gaza border.

Adi Vital-Kaploun, 33, was killed by Hamas in Israel, her family says. Vital-Kaploun was a dual Canadian-Israeli citizen with a large extended family in Ottawa. (Supplied)

She was hiding in her home with her two young sons at the time of the attack. Both boys, one four-years-old, the other just six-months-old, survived.

Vital-Kaploun was one of roughly 1,200 Israelis killed by Hamas militants that day.

"My head knows Adi is not here. My heart knows she is not here, but I still can’t get past that. That she is not here." Rivers Vital said in an interview with CTV National News.

Adi Vital-Kaploun had deep ties to the Ottawa community, and her mother was in the capital at the time of the attack.

Adi Vital-Kaploun's parents hold up her photo.

Flags at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre in Ottawa flew at half mast on Monday, ahead of an event to honour the victims of the worst attack against Jewish people since the Holocaust.

"The mood is solemn. We remember, we grieve, we still wonder, how can such atrocities take place?" said Adam Silver, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa.

"It’s important to point out that our community is diverse. Certainly, folks are grappling with this in different ways. We have people who have direct connections, through family, through friends, through colleagues in Israel, they've been grappling with it over the last year. We're doing things to provide spaces for people to come together. We're having commemoration events, and we're certainly mourning and grieving."

Details about the event, including the location and a list of speakers were not released. Silver tells CTV News that’s because of safety concerns, among other considerations.

"We're also trying to honour the memories and not turn this into a circus. The fact is that we have a large group attending both online and in person, but we sadly still have people in this community and other communities who latch on to terrorists sympathizing narratives, and somehow, on this day of mourning and grieving for our community, will find a way to intimidate and or threaten harm to us," he said.

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“We want to make sure that we're doing the day its justice in terms of honouring the memories and respecting those who were directly impacted."

Monday’s event in the capital comes after a weekend of demonstrations.

On Sunday, family members of Israeli victims who were killed on Oct. 7 joined community members and politicians for a march from City Hall to Parliament Hill to remember the victims and to call for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza.

A day prior, thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators flooded downtown streets, calling on the federal government to place an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel for its military offensive in Gaza and Lebanon.

Since the Israel-Hamas war broke out one year ago, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed and some 1.9 million people have been displaced according to local health authorities.

With files from CTV's Heather Wright