BRIGHTON AND HOVE, United Kingdom — On a sunny late summer morning, two dozen local visitors to the Brighton and Hove Jewish Center gather for their weekly vigil before a large photo of Omri Miran, a hostage seized by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Around them, trees are bedecked with yellow ribbons, and an Israeli flag flutters gently in the wind.

It is a totally natural but also sadly incongruous scene.

Brighton, a city on the south coast of England that elected Britain’s first Green MP, is one of the UK’s most progressive communities and prides itself on its open, tolerant atmosphere. And yet, over the past two years, a memorial to those murdered by Hamas has been targeted over 50 times and completely destroyed on five occasions in its location in nearby Hove, a stone’s throw away.

Home to hipster coffee bars and vegan restaurants, a thriving arts and club scene, and Britain’s largest annual Pride festival, Brighton also has a long and illustrious Jewish history stretching back at least 150 years.

It was precisely this mix that drew Heidi Bachram and her Israeli-born husband, Adam Ma’anit, to the city 15 years ago.

“We are very much of the Left. I used to work fighting climate change and on human rights issues, and Adam used to work for an environmental charity,” Bachram tells The Times of Israel. “When I got pregnant, we wanted to bring up our kids in a progressive environment where they could be free.”

Those words now have an ironic twist.

As for so many others, the couple’s world changed forever on the morning of October 7, when nearly 3,100 miles away, on Kibbutz Nahal Oz, Ma’anit’s cousin Tsachi Idan shepherded his wife Gali and three of their children into the family’s safe room.

There was no lock on the door — missile barrages were the norm, but nobody expected a ground invasion. As gunfire sounded and the grim reality that Hamas terrorists had broken into the kibbutz became apparent, Tsachi and his oldest daughter, Ma’ayan, clung onto the handle in a vain bid to keep the family safe.

Ma’ayan died instantly when gunmen fired through the door. Tsachi and the rest of his family were held for hours in their home, their terror livestreamed by Hamas fighters on Gali’s Facebook account. Tsachi was eventually abducted to Gaza, his shattered family left behind. He was later murdered in captivity, his body returned as part of the February 2025 ceasefire deal.

The onslaught saw thousands of Hamas-led terrorists brutally slaughter some 1,200 people in southern Israel amid a horrific display of carnage, and abduct 251 to the Gaza Strip. Thousands more were injured.

For Bachram and Ma’anit, shock and grief were compounded by events unfolding on their own doorstep. On October 8, while burned-out homes in kibbutzim on the Gaza border still smoldered and the IDF desperately sought to flush out the remaining terrorists still roaming the area,........

© The Times of Israel