There are many dates that are significant in people’s lives.  December 7, 1941.  May 14, 1948.  November 22, 1963.  April 4, 1968.  June 6, 1968.  July 20, 1969.  March 28, 1979.  April 20, 1999.   September 11, 2001.  December 14, 2012.  February 14, 2018.  In Seattle, it was July 28, 2006. 

All the dates above are significant ones.  All have meaning in my life.  However, for me, October 7, 2023, is a date that changed who I am as a person.  Israel has always been an important part of my life and my identity.  I remember the stories of my grandparents listening on the transistor radio on November 25, 1947, as the UN voted on the partition plan to create a Jewish state.  My grandparents were passionate Zionists, and both sets of them went to visit Israel.  I am the rare American Jew who is the 3^rd generation to visit Israel.  My first trip was the summer of 1989 and I have been a total of 20 times so far with my 21^st planned for this year and hopefully my 22^nd and 23^rd as well. 

As I sat in my living room on October 7, 2023, watching the horrors on television and sending WhatsApp messages to my family and friends in Israel to check on them, I knew that I was different as a result.  I could tell that I was changed as a result of what was happening.  I will never forget the image shown over and over on television of a minivan on the side of the road.  The father was the driver and had been murdered, his head laying against the steering wheel.  His young daughter was laying on top of him, also murdered.  This was one vehicle among many that were shown. As more information and video came out, the horror increased.  I sat in my chair watching the reports and getting live info via WhatsApp from friends.  My friend Maor, the consul general from Israel to Florida reached out to check on me and told me to stop watching the news because it was bad for my mental health.  But I couldn’t.  Senator Rick Scott called me to check on how I was doing.  I was both shocked and grateful that he called.  I worked with some friends to put together a community gathering to express our pain and anger, to give the community an opportunity to grieve together and hopefully a chance to begin to heal.  We had US Representatives there, Florida Representatives there, members of the US Senate sent aides and so did members of the US Senate.  Mayor Jerry Demings and his wife, Representative Val Demings came.  I don’t remember what I said when I spoke but I remember is was passionate, direct, and was filled with emotion.

When it was announced there would be a rally in Washington, DC, on the mall, I knew I had to be there.  I knew that both for my own soul and to be able to answer with integrity what I did after October 7^th by my future grandchildren, I had to show up.  Being there with 300,000 other people was an amazing experience.  We sang Hatikvah together, heard from amazing speakers, carried our signs, chanted “Bring them home” about the hostages.  It was a feeling I will never forget. 

As time moved on, I learned of 4 friends that had family members taken hostage.  Six people taken on October 7^th by Hamas.  Ultimately, four of them have been released.  One turned 13 the day after she was released.  Her mom was released day after her birthday.  My friends and I put together a campaign to get her birthday and Hanukkah presidents.  The video of her with the presents is priceless.  It made my heart sign.  Even today, watching it brings joy to my heart and soul.  This precious child was kidnapped, held as a hostage, kept in tunnels, and was traumatized.  To see her smile with these presents warms my being.

I worked with the Israel consulate to host a showing of the 47-minute Hamas video for politicians, law enforcement, and some members of the community.  Many told me that they couldn’t watch it.  Many told me that I shouldn’t watch it.  It was painful to see but for me, bearing witness was essential.  There are images I saw that I will never forget.  The cries of two little boys after their father was murdered in front of them, one having lost the sight in one eye.  Their mother coming to site hours later and seeing her husband lying dead in the doorway of the safe room.  Beheadings.  Blood smeared all over a room where people were executed.  Terrorists calling their parents to brag about how many Jews they killed and hearing the excitement not just in their voice but the voice of their parents.  It was the same type of pride I felt with my children when they graduated high school and college except this pride was for the murder of Jews.  It was horrifying to see and yet, I can’t imagine having not seen what the terrorists of Hamas did to my Jewish mishpacha (family). 

A friend of mine in Israel was recalled into the IDF and was the head of operations in Gaza.  He told me about what he did on October 7^th to try to save people.  He spent 120 days in Gaza, coordinating the efforts to eliminate Hamas and free the hostages.  I got occasional messages and worried about his safety every day.  After 4 months of service, he was released from service temporarily to decompress.  He came to the United States for work related projects and happened to be in Orlando.  We had a chance to get together and during that time he shared a bit of what it was like during those 120 days.  How many times he was nearly killed.  He told me that the flight from Israel to America was incredibly difficult for him because it was the first time he had experienced quiet in 120 days, and he finally had a chance to process what happened.  I showed him the video of the little girl opening her birthday and Hanukkah presents after being a hostage.  The look on his face is one I will never forget.  It’s why he does everything he does. 

I attended the AIPAC Policy Summit in Washington, DC, just a few weeks ago.  We heard from parents of a current hostage.  We heard from a young woman whose parents were murdered while her brother hid under the bed, lying in their blood and urine for hours.  We heard from a survivor from the Nova Music Festival.  It’s always powerful to hear from our national politicians however it was nothing compared to hearing from those who were impacted by October 7^th.  On the last morning on the Summit, we learned that a US citizen who was taken hostage was murdered by Hamas.  We all gasped at the news and the room was filled with sorrow.

Later that day, I finally went to get the tattoos I had wanted for a few months.  One is the words of Mia Schem, a hostage taken from the Nova Music Festival.  She said, and then got tattooed on her arm, “We will dance again.  7.10.23”.  I proudly have that on the inside of my right forearm.  The other one is a tree and under the roots it says NOVA  7.10.23.  They are constant reminders to me of the horrors of October 7^th, of the rise of antisemitism, how we will always be Jews first and foremost, and that there is no need to hide being Jewish, my pride in my Jewish identity, and the importance of Israel to me.

I felt like I had been through the ringer since October 7^th.  Powerful emotions, loss, fear, concern, anger, frustration – you name it, I have felt it.  I have wanted to go to Israel since October 7^th however my family has not wanted me to go yet, so I have waited.  It’s been incredibly difficult for me not to go, not to be there, not to take action to do my part for Israel and the Israeli people.  The concept of Shalom Bayit (peace in the home) has been more important however it hasn’t been easy.  Initially I was going in March 2024 that was postponed until May 2024.  That date may even be changed.

So having been through the ringer, when there was a showing this week of the new documentary about the Nova music festival, I wanted to go.  I had no expectations about the movie or the speaker afterwards.  I think that was good because if I had expected the experience to have the impact that it did, I may not have gone. 

The documentary was shown through the eyes of those who were attending the music festival.  It’s not what I expected.  I didn’t expect it to be quite so ‘first person’ view.  You could hear the music, see the dancing, and celebrate with joy the fun those who were there enjoyed.  It reminded me of many things I used to do with my friends at that age.  When the rockets started at sunrise, it was strange hearing them talk about ‘fireworks’ because we already know they were rockets, but those at the festival didn’t at first.  Then they saw Iron Dome taking them out and they still had no idea what was coming.  As somebody who knew what terror was about to happen, it was hard to watch them in real time, make assumptions that we all would have made at that time.  You begin to see the terrorists arrive on bikes, trucks, and gliders.  You hear their joy and excitement because they are about to murder and rape and kidnap Jews.  I saw that in the Hamas video, but this one was different as it contrasted with those attending the festival.  Flipping back and forth between the arriving terrorists and the festival goers who didn’t know what was happening truly felt like a horror movie. 

As they began to run and hide, the videos shown were more from those hiding.  You could feel their anxiety as they recorded messages.  Some send goodbye messages to their families.  Some spoke to their parents who begged them to hide, play dead, do anything to survive.  The one thing that really hit home was their expectation that the army and the police would come rescue them.  As Ambassador Michael Oren has said, it was part of the covenant between the State of Israel and the people.  The army, the IDF, would always be there to protect them.  On October 7^th, they weren’t.  Not only could you feel the loss of trust from those hiding, I felt it personally.  I always had incredible support and admiration for the IDF.  High expectations.  We don’t know what happened or why they were so unprepared on October 7^th but the reality is they were unprepared.  They weren’t there when they were needed.  That loss of trust is palpable.  It doesn’t surprise me that over 300,000 reservists returned to duty after October 7^th, more than were recalled and far more than were expected. 

There is a saying in the Talmud, “Kol Arevim Ze LaZeh (or BaZeh depending)”.  It means “All of Israel (or all of the Jewish community) is responsible for each other.”  It’s commonly said by Rabbis during a sermon urging us to do a little bit more.  On October 7^th, it showed me what it really means.  We are all one.  What happens to one of us happens to all of us.  If we don’t stand together to take care of each other, nobody will stand with us and we will all fall.  It’s why I have struggled with not going to Israel since October 7^th.  In my heart, in my soul, I need to be there helping in any way that I can.  I also need to be here with my family.  It’s my own internal struggle that I face and deal with on a daily basis. 

The end of the movie is when the IDF does finally show up, approximately 7 hours after the attack began.  I have seen this footage before and in the movie, they chose to blur out the dead bodies lying around the festival.  The footage I saw showed the bodies.  It was horrific. You could hear the urgency in the IDF soldiers voices as they cried to out for any survivors.  Is there anybody alive?  And reporting to everybody else that everybody they found is dead.  It’s a sobering sight.  It reminded me of the pictures from US soldiers discovering the Nazi death camps but now in real time for me.  The first time I saw that footage, I was struck by the number of people who were murdered, who were lying there dead only because they were Jews.  This time it was the voices of the IDF soldiers, devastated that by the time they arrived, there was nobody to save.  I felt their failure through their voices.  The breaking of that covenant.  The change occurring for all Israelis and Jews in the diaspora.   The need to look deep within and ask, “What am I doing?  How can I help?  What’s my obligation?” 

WARNING – The video below is GRAPHIC. You may not want to watch it.

The movie ended, the lights turned on, blinding us for a moment.  I think we needed that moment of blindness to return us from the horrors occurring at the Nova Festival on October 7^th to the current day. 

Lee Sasi, a young woman from Los Angeles, who is a survivor of the Nova music festival massacre, took the podium and began to speak to us. 

Here is a video interview she did with Jake Tapper of CNN on October 11th.  The story she told us was similar to what she shares here, only with more detail.  The way Jake Tapper is stunned and doesn’t know what to say is how we felt listening to her months later.    Her pain, expressed days later, was no different when she spoke to us.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/10/11/the-lead-lee-sasi-jake-tapper-live.cnn

Here is her interview with Chris Cuomo.  It is hard to watch without tears coming to my eyes.  The brutality of Hamas.  The sacrifice of her uncle. 

https://www.newsnationnow.com/video/survivor-of-israel-festival-attack-was-saved-by-uncle-%e2%80%98he%e2%80%99s-a-legend%e2%80%99-cuomo/9075461

I get angry when I hear about Israel’s ‘indiscriminate killing’ of Gazan citizens, because it’s not true.  The data, even using the numbers provided by Hamas, shows that the civilian to military casualty rate is approximately 1:1, one of the lowest ever.  The UN reports that the normal rate is 9:1, meaning 90% of all casualties in war are civilians.  This means that Israel is 9 times better than the accepted ratio by the world.  War is awful and innocent people die.  It’s why we need to try to avoid war at all costs.  But when we can’t, we have to fight the evil.  Hamas is the evil that is involved with indiscriminate killings.  Listen to Lee’s description of how the terrorists fired into the bunker of civilians.  How they threw grenades into a mass of civilians.  How they executed a man in front of the bunker as he yelled to them in Arabic, “I am an Arab, I am an Arab.”

Listening to Lee speak about what happened at the Nova festival and the horrors and evil of Hamas impacted me deeply.  It became more personal than before.  It reinforced how essential it is that we fight against evil because if we don’t eliminate evil, if we allow evil to live, it will grow.  And evil will destroy all of us, just like Hamas executed the Bedouin man outside the shelter who was yelling to them that he was an Arab.  Evil doesn’t care. 

We see this in our own country as people are choosing to attack Jews in the name of Palestinian freedom.  How does a synagogue being attacked help the people of Gaza?  How does protesting a Jewish actor just for being Jewish, not for any statement or action, help get food to the people of Gaza?  How does blocking streets in America help stop the corruption of UNRWA who isn’t delivering the humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza and instead is giving it to Hamas who is keeping it or selling it on the back market?  Listen to what the people of Gaza are saying.  The humanitarian aid costs too much to buy.  IT’S FREE unless Hamas is stealing it.  The food packages don’t include any meat or protein.  That’s because HAMAS IS STEALING IT. 

I worry about not just the future of Israel but the future of the United States, of Europe and of the world.  We are allowing evil to win.  Hearing Lee Sasi share her story forces me to increase my efforts to fight evil.  After coming home from the event, I reached out to friends of mine who are Palestinians in Bethlehem, East Jerusalem, and Beit Jala.  I wanted to check on them, reaffirm our friendship, and set up a time for us to talk about what the future may look like and what we can do together, to fight evil and change the world.  I urge you to do the same with your friends, wherever they are.  Start in your local community.  Reach out to people who are different than you and get a cup of coffee.  Have a conversation.  Begin by agreeing that you want a better world and perhaps you disagree on how to get there.  Start the process.

We owe it to Lee Sasi, her uncle who sacrificed his life to save hers and others, and all those murdered on October 7^th to make the world a better place.  We owe it to all those who have lost their lives as a result of the evil of Hamas to not let their deaths be in vain.  We can change the world but it takes our effort, our commitment, and our dedication to make it happen.  We need all of us to do our part.