JNS
“The Children of October 7" tells the stories of eight Israelis between the ages of 10-16 who survived Hamas's massacre.
When American social media influencer Montana Tucker was approached with the idea of taking part in a documentary about the children survivors of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, she didn’t think twice.
The most deadly day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust had made an indelible effect on the 31-year-old Los Angeles dancer, singer and socialite, who had originally used her social media platform to address non-controversial social issues such as body image, anti-bullying and more recently Holocaust remembrance.
The massacre “completely changed my life,” Tucker told JNS Monday evening at the world premiere of “The Children of October 7” at Jerusalem’s Museum of Tolerance. “Something inside me told me I had to do this.”
The premiere was attended by Israeli President Isaac Herzog and his wife, along with the survivors' families.
That something, said Tucker, was likely the influence of her grandparents, both Holocaust survivors who had settled in the United States after World War Two but who had always reflected on how the Holocaust would not have happened if the State of Israel had been in existence at the time.
“Growing up I would hear denials of the Holocaust and I would think to myself, how could this be?” she said. “And now we are hearing the denials of Oct. 7 in the United States, on campuses and around the world, even though Hamas live streamed the attack themselves, and I'm asking myself again, how could it be.”
The chilling 35-minute documentary focuses in on the testimonies of eight Israeli children between the ages of 10-16, including a 12-year-old who was kidnapped to the Gaza Strip and later released, and whose father, along with another child in the film, is among the 101 hostages still being held by Hamas 14 months after the attack.
“It was clear that we needed to document their testimonies for the historical record,” the film's Israeli producer Eytan Schwartz told JNS. “All my life we grew up with the stories of Holocaust survivors on Holocaust Remembrance Day, and here we were at this moment where we needed to capture the moment of the children when they're still children.”
All of the children who took part in the documentary did so with the permission of their parents or, for those whose parents were murdered in the attacks, their guardians, and the film was shot with psychologists present.
The gripping footage shows terrorists attacking civilians' homes in southern Israel, some using an Israeli teenager to lure neighbors out of their safe rooms. The terrorists murdered men women and children, even pets, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250 others. One scene shows heavily armed terrorists seizing a home in one of the hard-hit Gaza-border agricultural communities, broadcasting live on social media as the terrified family sat helpless on the floor. (“Are they killing us ?” a child is heard asking.)
But more than anything else the film focuses on the voices of the children survivors, who are interviewed by Tucker, recounting the horrors they experienced and describing how they are coping with their trauma and loss one year on.
“I felt I could not stay silent with all the lies being spread,” said Ella Shani, 16, a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri whose father was murdered in the attack. “All we have is our voice.”
“Most people do not understand what we went through,” noted Alona Russo, 12 who appears in the film along with her sister Ya’ala, 10. The girl's father was among those murdered that day. “People don’t feel that actual human lives have gone through this,” she said.
Rotem Matthias, who lost both his parents in the massacre and is being raised by his uncle, described a feeling of emptiness that he believes will stick with him forever.
“I can only learn to live with it in a better and more efficient way,” he conceded.
“By focusing on the kids, you're bringing out the innocence of the children and making it very difficult for someone to come to argue with them,” said Yoni Riss, the museum's CEO and the host of the event.
According to the film’s producer Schwartz, they aim to screen the documentary on a major American television network, although he conceded that U.S. networks are wary of touching anything Israeli-made at this time.
Indeed, Tucker’s decision to focus on Israel advocacy after Oct. 7 and now to take part in the film—backed by her mother and agent, Michelle, who insisted that any proceeds of the film be used to help rebuild southern Israel—did not come without a professional cost. Hundreds of thousands of fans quit her social media sites, and she was faced with vitriol and antisemitic hate threats. Many prominent American Jewish actors and figures stayed on the sidelines over the last year, maintaining a stony neutrality, likely to avoid similar consequences.
“The hate just filled me even more,” Tucker told JNS, for whom the premiere marked a fifth visit to Israel since Oct. 7. “I know I am 100% on the right side of history, 100% on the right side of humanity.”
Vowing to never give up on Israel no matter the cost to her career, Tucker said: “Never again is now.”
