JNS
My journey didn’t shatter my emotional well-being. It fortified my spirit.
I am a Jewish American who feels incredibly fortunate to be part of a thriving Jewish Diaspora in the United States. I am also unabashedly committed to the State of Israel. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently invited me to visit the Jewish state as part of a six-person delegation of representatives from the American and British entertainment industries.
While my friends and family expressed trepidation about my traveling to a war zone, from the moment I received the invitation, I knew that this was a trip I had to take. If anything, I wasn’t worried about my physical safety. I was more concerned about my emotional well-being. How would I feel visiting a nation that had just experienced its own Sept. 11? I remember how wounded Americans felt for months, even years after those terror attacks, so I could theoretically fathom how Israelis might feel after Oct. 7, 2023, but I wanted, with some admitted apprehension, to bear witness for myself.
While I initially felt emotionally devastated, that feeling transformed into inspiration as our journey through Israel progressed. I came home filled with tremendous hope and strength, thanks to the countless Israelis whom we met who encountered the brutality of Oct. 7, yet who persist and persevere with extraordinary grit and resilience in their hearts, minds and souls.
Ella was a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri, which was home to 1,200 people living less than three miles from the Gaza border. On Oct. 7, Hamas brutally murdered about 100 of its residents and kidnapped 30 others. Against all odds, Ella, her husband and their three young children survived. We accompanied Ella into her home one year after the attack as she recounted the events of that day. Her family had spent hours huddled in their safe room when they heard their next-door neighbor being shot by gunfire. Moments later, Hamas militants entered their home. Inside their safe room, which normally served as the children’s bedroom, was a baby monitor transmitting sounds into the main living space. As the militants ransacked the home, the family’s dog began barking ferociously from the safe room. The barking, amplified through the baby monitor, seemed to confuse the intruders about the dog’s location. Ella believes this disorientation, combined with the militants’ fear of dogs, led them to retreat, miraculously sparing their lives.
While Ella presented as a compelling spokesperson for Kibbutz Be’eri, she told us of the mental-health challenges she faces every day. While she herself can express what she and her family experienced, she told us she is simply unable to listen to others describe their horror. Curiously, we heard similar sentiments conveyed by other survivors.
Jessica did not attend the Nova music festival, but her boyfriend, Ben, did. Hearing that Hamas terrorists were storming the Gaza Envelope, she reached Ben on his cell phone, who, during this short period, had shuttled nine partygoers on two separate trips to safety. Though Jessica urged him not to return to Nova, he went back for a third rescue.
She was on the phone with him when she began to hear screams from the passengers in Ben’s car, and the phone line suddenly went dead. It was later determined that he was killed when his vehicle came under heavy gunfire from Hamas terrorists who set up a checkpoint on the road. Jessica has joined the cast of the play “She Only Wanted to Dance,” which pulls true-life stories from the festival. Demonstrating a grit that one can only dream to possess, Jessica explained that performing in the play has been therapeutic for her.
Fellow castmate Rafa said the same.
Rafa is a 20-year-old native of Brazil who immigrated to Israel three years before Oct. 7. She attended the dance party with her boyfriend, Ranani, a fellow Brazilian also living in Israel. After dancing all night, Nova festival-goers fell under attack around 6:30 a.m. Rafa and Ranani found their way into a roadside bomb shelter, like the one we entered during our visit. A total of 40 people were crammed into this space, about the size of a walk-in closet.
With Hamas fighters gathering outside, Ranani decided to storm out of the shelter and fight. As Rafa looked on, Ranini was mercilessly gunned down. The militants then entered the shelter, spraying the space with bullets, killing 30 of the 40 people inside. Rafa survived because those who perished collapsed onto her body, shielding her from the bullets. While few would begrudge her if she decided to go back to Brazil after the horrors she has endured, Rafa told us in no uncertain terms that Israel is now and will always remain her home. If anything, she is more committed than ever to the Jewish state; it is a level of patriotic feeling one can only admire.
Given that we were an entertainment-industry delegation, we met Israeli creative types who have turned their attention to telling stories about Oct. 7, including Oded Davidoff, whose credits include “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem,” a huge hit on Netflix.
Davidoff is working on “One Day in October,” a co-production between Fox Entertainment Studios and Israel’s Yes TV. The anthology series is being described as the first scripted representation of personal stories that have emerged from Oct. 7. We were honored to watch a cut of one of the episodes about Aya, an avid bike rider from Kibbutz Be’eri.
Aya woke up very early on Oct.7 to take ride. When the attack began, she decided to go home, but upon approaching the kibbutz gate, she was met by staff members, all Arab Bedouins, a group known for their loyalty to Israel. They warned her that the kibbutz was crawling with Hamas militants, and she needed to flee for her safety. She ended up in a wooded area with Ismail, a Bedouin she recognized as a cafeteria worker on the kibbutz. For the next several hours, they hid among the thorny bushes as heavy gunfire fell around them. At the same time, Ismail used Aya’s cell phone to keep in contact with his family. After several hours, four of Ismail’s family members, dodging a barrage of gunfire coming from Hamas, managed to track down the pair.
Without hesitation, Ismail brought Aya to his family’s car, and they began to drive, seeking safety. Within minutes, the Israel Defense Forces came upon their vehicle and initially suspected that the Arab men were kidnapping Aya. When Aya insisted that these Arab men had been her saviors, the IDF stood down.
What we did not know until the end of the screening of the episode was Aya was sitting in the room with us. When we realized she was the woman sitting across the table from us, well, there was not a dry eye in the room. Not only were we overwhelmed with emotion that she had survived, but we were filled with light that an Israeli Jew and an Arab, actually several Arabs, came together to save each other in the face of unspeakable evil.
Seeing the scripted version of Aya and Ismail’s story—and meeting Aya in person—provided a glimmer of hope, of optimism that maybe, one day, the children of Isaac and Ishmael will not only peacefully coexist but unite to support each other and build a flourishing Middle East.
In the end, my journey to Israel did not shatter my emotional well-being. It fortified my spirit. Ella, Jessica, Rafa and Aya—four Israeli women who faced unimaginable horrors on Oct. 7—showed me that even at our lowest points, we can muster determination, the gift of grit, the power of perseverance and very deep reservoirs of resilience.
