A Year of Endless Yahrzeits Has Begun

Return to Kfar Aza

It is hard not to feel the passage of time is somehow – off.  Here in Israel, we are in the midst of marking a terrible anniversary - the beginning of an endless series of terrible anniversaries. 

I spent October 7 at Kibbutz Nir Oz, among the most devastated of the communities in the Gaza Envelope.  Of it’s roughly 400 members that terrible morning, over a hundred were either slaughtered or taken – and even now, some 29 - both living and known to have been murdered, remain in the hands of the terrorists.  All but 7 of the homes there were entered by terrorists, leaving damage and destruction in their wakes.  As survivors held out in their safe rooms, the terrorists ran wild and it was not until 14:30 that the first soldier arrived.  By then, the terrorists had moved on.

A handful of kibbutz members have been toiling daily to begin the process of makin ready for the return of their community – something still a long way off.  Almost no one lives there now.  Almost no one can. 

The memorial was held in the Nir Oz Cemetery alongside dozens of new graves – in what would otherwise could have been a beautiful, bucolic setting.  The final speaker, a kibbutz member in his 20s, intoned a variation of the closing words of the Pesach Seder: 

Next year in a rebuilt Nir Oz - לשנה הבאה בניר עוז הבנויה

All who were present quietly whispered “Amen”.

Of course, October 7 is a date on the secular calendar.  The Hebrew anniversary was Thursday, Simchat Torah, which the rabbis remind us is among the most celebratory of days, inappropriate for marking a yahrzeit.  So, for many, an alternative date was chosen, among them last Tuesday - a memorial service /  אזקרה for two of the young people slaughtered on Kfar Aza.

In the months since our Aliyah, Janet and I have grown close to Tami Raviv and her family.  Tami’s daughter, Niv (27) z’l, was brutally murdered that terrible day together with her long-time boyfriend, Nirel (31) z’l.  Both were decorated IDF officers, Niv in a training unit and Nirel, a combat veteran.  Nirel had been gravely wounded in an incident in Hebron in 2015 and was literally brought back to life, eventually returning to active duty following a long and arduous recovery process, unaware that the incident had left his heart irreparably damaged.  It ultimately resulted in the premature end of his military service, after which he found himself at odds with his beloved IDF over his legally mandated disability benefits.  While also contending with PTSD, Nirel decided to pursue a law degree so that he could, in time, represent the interests of other disabled soldiers.  He never got the chance.

Niv was said to have been something of an empath, having profoundly touched the lives of countless friends and acquaintances.  Her mother told me that hardly a week goes by without her being approached by someone else who Niv had managed to touch, to help or to save one way or another. She was preparing for a career in clinical psychology. 

Niv’s was a purely secular family from Netanya while Nirel came from a very religious background.  The kids chose not to bring their parents or families together throughout their nine years together for fear that their differences would become a wedge.  But as the end of the chagim approached last October, the ice was due to be broken when Nirel proposed to Niv on a day of profound personal significance – the date on which his life had begun anew after finally recovering from his grievous wounds.  It was planned for October 10.

They moved to Kfar Aza only a few months before, to a place defined by what mattered most to them and the life they’d planned to build.  Quiet.  Pastoral.  Close friends.  And not far from Nirel’s family.  Before October 7, people throughout the Gaza Envelope described their communities as 95% heaven, the remainder a function of the ever present dangers and attacks from across the border.

They had been to Niv’s family for Erev Simchat Torah the evening of October 6 but chose to return to Kfar Aza in the middle of the night and so just before 6:30 AM on the 7^th they were asleep in their small apartment at the far end of a row of similar homes in the young people’s neighborhood.

On hearing the red alert, they retreated to their small safe-room in the back, where they could hear their murderers begin their assault.  The shooting.  The screams.  The burning.  Unarmed, they hid and they waited.  Nirel’s final text to the family was at 10:10. I’m closing my phone. Pray for us…

With the house literally burning down around them, Nirel leapt from the window with only a kitchen knife for a weapon, determined to help Niv escape.  He was murdered just steps away – his body mutilated.  Not long thereafter, overcome by smoke and heat, Niv too leapt from the small window.  A soldier who had fought his way into the area saw her fall after bullets found her too.  The engagement ring was discovered in the wreckage.  A week later, the families finally came together for the first time, for a shared funeral before a common grave.

So it was last Tuesday afternoon that for the first time since that horrific day their extended circle gathered to remember them.  Soldiers and civilians.  Religious and secular.  But for the way they dressed, there was no telling them apart.  They were the people that loved them.  That loved their families.  I watched, with a lump in my throat, the two mothers, one unmistakably religious and other clearly not, holding one another as words of mourning were spoken and sung.

Janet and I walked the neighborhood.  There is still devastation in every direction, much as it was that day I had been there with a group of colleagues from the US last November, though this time we were allowed to linger, and to visit the wreckage of Niv and Nirel’s home.  There were 51 young people in that neighborhood on the morning of October 7.  Forty-one were either murdered or remain in Gaza. 

The war goes on.  More than a hundred hostages are still in the dungeons of Gaza.  Life here is replete with trauma, and with hope.  Tami established a new facility to serve the growing numbers of young Israelis with combat-related PTSD.  Located on a cliffside overlooking the Mediterranean in Beit Yanai, just north of Netanya, it is called the Niv Nirel Center.   It began as an idea in January and on August 1 they opened their doors - owing to the tireless efforts of both families, working together. Hope indeed. 

October 7, 2024 has come and gone - as has Simchat Torah 5785. Each day in between Israelis marked Yahrzeits - אזקרות for the more than 1200 murdered on that most terrible of days. Every day since finds us marking more - those of fallen soldiers and murdered hostages. Every single day. In the space of the past few days alone, another 23 soldiers have been killed in combat - many of them reservists, husbands, parents. Their deaths left 51 more children without a father. Children who now join the seemingly endless parade of mourners at countless Yahrzeits to come. May their memories be for a blessing - זכרונו לברכה.

Am Yisrael Chai - עם ישראל חי