INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Hundreds of members and supporters of the Jewish community gathered Monday night to mourn lives lost during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel.

They also called for the release of some 100 people being held hostage.

The event was heavily guarded as leaders juggled safety concerns with members’ fears and anxieties.

“There is such an acute awareness of needing to be extra cautious for security reasons in the current climate,” said Eli Isaacs, president of the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council. “At the same time, it is disconcerting to have to be wanded.”

The events of a year earlier affected every member of the Jewish community.

“I don’t think today in itself has been difficult. I think the last year in itself has been difficult,” said Todd Maurer, the former president of the council. “And so, today is just another day in a long year. and so it’s been a year of difficulty.”

Irwin Levine, a lay leader of the Indianapolis Jewish community, said, “At the end of the Holocaust, Jews around the world said, ‘Never again. We will never again have this happen to us.’ And on Oct. 7 when over 2,000 of our people were slaughtered, tortured, raped and kidnapped, the Jewish community around the world and in Israel in particular said this is what we mean.”

The conflict seems insurmountable and with no clear end in sight.

Jewish community leaders are concerned about innocent lives on both sides. “Many of us with a conscience mourn all loss of human life, especially civilian life,” Isaacs said. “It’s devastating that the conflict has dragged in the way that it has that it’s continued to escalate.”

Some fear the conflict could be indefinite, but members of the Indianapolis Jewish community say it will take help from world leaders to bring the violent chapter to a close.