When Beverly Hills Mayor Sharona Nazarian took office on April 1, 2025, she said that during her term, Beverly Hills would become the first city to begin work on a permanent memorial to the victims of the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. On Sunday, Oct. 5, the public got its first look at the artist’s renderings of what that memorial will look like. It was unveiled in a ceremony led by Nazarian inside the Beverly Hills Public Library.
“We’re building this not just for Beverly Hills but for the world because in a time when antisemitism is rising in our schools, on our college campuses, and even in our own neighborhoods, we cannot stay silent,” Nazarian said at the ceremony.
The Oct. 7 Memorial, titled “Forty Steps to the Sky,” will be located at the northeast corner of Rexford Drive and South Santa Monica Boulevard, next to the library and across the street from the Beverly Hills 9/11 Memorial Garden. Nazarian described the memorial as “a promise.”
“[It is] a promise that lives taken will not be forgotten; a promise that hate will not have the last word of promise to educate; a promise that we will stand united today, tomorrow and always and let the world hear us clearly,” Nazarian told the crowd of just over 100 people. “Never again is exactly right now and it begins here. Oct. 7 was meant to destroy, but this memorial is built to endure. This is who we are.”
She said the project took shape after consistent public urging. There were over 3,100 letters submitted to Beverly Hills city leaders to demand a plan for remembrance. “What was most extraordinary, what moved me deeply was seeing all sectors of Judaism, all sectors of our peer community standing together, united as one voice, one heart, and one people,” Nazarian said. “That is the strength of who we are.”
The memorial’s design centers on the date itself, where it falls during the year, and will feature the names of the over 1,200 people killed that day, including 46 Americans and victims from more than 30 other countries. From the sidewalk, the memorial will feature a curved wall of engravings of the names of those who perished on that day.
“Forty Steps to the Sky” was designed by Los Angeles-based artist Art Nesterenko of Broskin Studio. At the center of the plaza will be a circular “basin” made of concrete mixed with sand and gravel imported from Israel. The basin’s walls will be divided into twelve sections representing the months of the year. The plan is to have Hebrew engraved on each of the twelve walls, but the design team told The Journal that it remains to be determined what will be written. Water will flow across the basin’s Hebrew text to represent what the artist describes as a “reverb of tears.”
From the center of the garden, a 23-foot steel spiral staircase sculpture, signifying the year 2023. The staircase sculpture will feature 40 steps, representing the 40 weeks of the year leading to the attack. After those 40 stairs, the sculpture fractures as it rises to represent the uncertain times that followed. The main structure will be built from forged steel assembled from hundreds of small pieces. Every step will contain custom-stained glass created by melting glass and sand from Israel.
That design was selected after a competition conducted by the City of Beverly Hills. After several rounds reviewing of the submissions, Nesterenko’s design was selected in August.
“The inspiration comes from a tree of life, the spiral,” Nesterenko told The Journal. “That first day when I read the rules and the whole requirement for submission, I had this vision of the design that’s 40 steps as a passageway of the souls going up. And the next day, me and my team, we sat together. We felt this project had to include a staircase to the sky.”
The concept was expanded into a full garden design surrounding the sculpture, featuring plants native to Israel. There will be benches and several entrances. The landscape will be made with gravel that they will export from several sites in Israel where the attacks took place.
Nesterenko said there are still small details to be added before the design is finalized. “There are some little details that have yet to be included which will be included,” Nesterenko said. He explained that the area behind the Beverly Hills Library, where the memorial will stand, was originally designed as an educational courtyard.
Nesterenko said he hopes to make use of the small courtyard space behind the Beverly Hills Library, an area that was part of the building’s original plans but never built. He explained that the site could serve both as a memorial and as an educational space, where school groups and children could visit for field trips and learning activities. “There will be so many little coded details that when people come, it’ll be a journey,” Nesterenko said. “The first time they come, they just look. The second time they come, they’ll start to understand the height of 23 feet and things like that.”
Broskin Studio’s business director Hisham Rebani said that in his life, the memorial that made the first imprint on him was the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City.
“We hope that this will have a similar impact to the way we felt when people visited that memorial,” Rebani told The Journal.
No official date for Beverly Hills’ memorial’s groundbreaking was announced. Nesterenko said he hopes for it to be ready to be unveiled on Oct. 7, 2026.
The most heart-wrenching moment of the design unveiling event was when Danielle Sasi, a Los Angeles resident and Nova Festival survivor, shared her story. She recalled how after fleeing the Nova festival and taking cover in a concrete shelter. Her father, Avi, was murdered while shielding Danielle and the other eight survivors.
Fighting back tears, Sasi said, “I’m grateful to be alive — it took me two years to say that.”
Also speaking at the unveiling of the artist renderings were Consul General of Israel to the Pacific Southwest Israel Bachar, Rabbi David Wolpe, Rabbi Pini Dunner, Rabbi Noah Farkas of Jewish Federation Los Angeles, Beverly Hills City Manager Nancy Hunt-Coffey, and Cantor Lizzie Weiss.
The event concluded with a candle lighting and moment of silence led by the City Council. Elementary school students from the Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy Choir closed the ceremony with a performance of Matisyahu’s 2009 song, “One Day.”
