Members of Sudbury's Jewish community, its allies within the city and members of council gathered at Tom Davies Square for a vigil Wednesday.
Dubbed 'A Vigil for Peace,' Mayor Paul Lefebvre and the president of the local synagogue, Emily Caruso-Parnell, shared their thoughts on the ongoing armed conflict since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Around 100 people attended with some wearing the Israeli flag.
"I had seen the edict by a former Hamas leader of violence against Jewish people across the world and I'm saying that's not only an issue for people in the Middle East, it's an issue for the people in my community," Lefebvre said.
Violence has escalated in the West Bank area since Oct. 7 when Palestinian militant groups led by Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel.
"In the one place that Jews should feel safest, our ancestral homeland, we were suddenly and violently shocked by how unsafe we were," Caruso-Parnell, the Shaar Hashomayim synagogue president, said.
"Kibbutzim and moshavim that many of us had visited, where many of us have friends and family were destroyed by terrorists."
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The two community leaders said combatting anti-Semitism and islamophobia is going to take meaningful action from everyone.
"I think of the children, I think of the Muslim ambulance driver who was shot point-blank because they didn't even bother to ask," Chad Savard, a student of Jewish history, said.
"Things like that, that all the people, the tourists that were there, the citizens of Israel. It was traumatizing."
While there is only one synagogue in Sudbury, the local Jewish community dates back in the city more than 100 years.
