All the families appreciate that you came, and you are now ambassadors of light for the hostages and victims.
ELLEN GELLER KAMARAS
“We are fighting a war within a war, a war between our story and theirs. Tourists who come to Israel now are our heroes.” – Israel Defense Force (IDF) Colonel
Why at 69 years of age, did I join a delegation to Israel with the Women’s Division of Israel Bonds? I will tell you.
First, let’s look at what an Israel Bonds mission is all about. It is not a way for tourists to see the Holy Land. An Israel Bonds mission provides an opportunity for committed individuals to travel to Israel to show their support for the country. Participants do not just sit on tour buses taking in the sights. They travel to different regions of Israel, including areas affected by conflict. They meet Israeli leaders and common folk. They experience Israeli culture and see the country’s amazing innovations. They participate in events that showcase Israel’s achievements and resilience.
According to the Israel Bonds website: The primary goal of Israel Bonds missions is to bolster the Israeli economy and demonstrate support for the country. Israel Bonds missions have a positive impact… fostering a sense of unity and providing vital financial support. In essence, an Israel Bonds mission is a tangible way for individuals to stand in solidarity with Israel and to contribute to its ongoing development and security.
The mission’s goal aligned perfectly with my goal – to support Israel in a tangible way. Also, I wanted to see things for myself, so that I could share with others what I learned and saw firsthand.
Israel Bonds Mission – My Personal Mission
My last visit to Israel before October 7thbegan a day after the May 14, 2023 ceasefire between Israel and Islamic Jihad, ending Operation Shield and Arrow in Gaza. I wholeheartedly joined in the exuberant celebration of Yom Yerushalayim, right in Yerushalayim!
Nearly two years later I asked myself: wasn’t it my responsibility as a Jew to witness what happened on October 7th? Only after doing so could I return to the U.S. to tell Israel’s story that I had seen firsthand, the real, resilient, courageous and strong story of our sisters and brothers.
As a child of Holocaust survivors educated in a Brooklyn girls yeshiva, my love for Israel was born from the ashes of the Holocaust.
Every Shabbat, my parents shared their narratives of Nazi labor camps, hiding in the forest with no shoes or coats, eating potato skins, and seeing their loved ones shot. After being liberated by the Russians in the Spring of 1944 and being hospitalized they made their way to a Displaced Persons (DP) camp in Munich, Germany, My parents expressed tremendous hakarot hatov, gratitude, to the brave Christians who hid them and to the American soldiers who housed them, taught them English, and gave them jobs.
Everyone in my yeshiva danced and sang in the streets when we heard that Israel had taken back the Old City of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War.
Considering my background it is no surprise that I am a strong supporter of Israel and I wanted to reconnect with Israel in a personal way. My family buys Israel Bonds as one way of supporting Israel. I joined the Women’s Division delegation of Israel Bonds also as a way to connect and bond with like-minded women from all over the U.S. who had the same focus, to stand with Israel.
Our Mission Begins: Sunday Night, May 11
We kicked off with an opening dinner at the Tel Aviv Hilton. The first speakers were lone soldiers connected with the organization Ach Gadol, Big Brother (the organization is for both men and women). Ach Gadol is the only organization with a system of personal accompaniment and 1:1 guidance for lone soldiers. These young adults courageously came to Israel as teenagers, without family, to join the IDF. Their commitment and love for Israel were palpable.
The next speaker was Shiri Bibas’ older sister, Dana Silberman-Sitton. Shiri, a”h, was killed by Hamas along with her two beautiful red-headed children, Ariel and Kfir. Dana spoke about the tragic day that her parents, sister, and nephews were captured and later murdered. At first she didnot know whether her parents were alive. Later their bodies were recovered, burned in the kitchen.
At Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir’s funeral, Dana promised her five angels that the monsters beyond the fence wouldnot succeed. “They will not defeat us. They will not break us…their mission failed because we united. . . we became stronger. . .invincible.”
We came to understand was that everyone in Israel knows someone who either was killed on October 7th or in the ensuing war, was/is held hostage, or is in the IDF or the reserves.
Day One: May 12 – IDF Memorial
Our first official delegation day was spent in my favorite city, Yerushalayim. We paid tribute to the fallen IDF soldiers in the Memorial Hall opened in 2018 in the Har Herzl Military Cemetery. The “emotionally and architecturally impactful memorial” was designed to commemorate Israel’s military service members killed in the line of duty, and reflects that Israelis mourn both personally and collectively. The spiraling memorial winds around a 250-meter-long continuous Wall of Names. This Wall was originally composed of 23,000 commemorative bricks, each individually engraved withthe name of a fallen soldier and the date of death. There are no titles, as all fallen soldier are considered equal. There is one brick for the 25,000 fallen on May 14, 1948, in the War of Independence.
Many bricks have been added since October 7th. Each brick is illuminated by incandescent lights on each yahrtzeit date.
At the memorial’s inauguration, President Rivlin said, “Jewish and Israeli memory connects the past and present with the future and plants within us strength, as individuals and as a nation.”
We laid a wreath, to honor the soldiers and reservists who lost their lives protecting the State of Israel since October 7th. We were able to search for fallen soldiers we knew. I located the brick of my daughter’s high school classmate, reservist Shmuel Harari, a”h, 35, who was killed on 10/23/24, in Southern Lebanon.
Hadassah Hospital
Our next stop was Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem. How fitting that a women’s delegation would visit Hadassah, founded by one of our most inspiring female leaders, Henrietta Szold.
The hospital, named after Queen Esther, who was also known as Hadassah, resembles a city. Szold was an American-born Jewish Zionist who devoted her life to tikkun olam, repairing the world, and to empowering women to heal.
In 1912,Szold established Hadassah, formally called Hadassah -The Women’s Zionist Organization of America. It was established asa volunteer organization for Jewish women.Szold had visited pre-state Israel in 1908 and saw the overcrowded conditions, families living without electricity and running water, and the dreadful poverty.
Szold created an infrastructure for medical health clinics throughout the country. One of her proudest accomplishments was leading the Youth Aliyah, which saved thousands of orphaned children from the Nazis before and during World War II.
Our group were greeted by Barbara Sofer, the Hadassah Israel PR Director. She introduced us to a foot soldier, Binyomin, who was there for his rehab session. He described his multiple injuries on October 7th and the amazing progress he has made with the help of the Hadassah rehabilitation staff.
The Director of Hadassah Ein Kerem and the head nurse of General Intensive Care provided an overview of the mega facility, a teaching hospital that serves 1,345,000 patients. Over one third of Jerusalem’s population are Arabs. At Hadassah, everyone is treated equally regardless of their ethnicity.
Dr. Kedar, Head of Acute Care Surgery and Trauma Unit, showed us the Trauma Center where helicopters brought both civilian and military casualties from the October 7thattacks. Dr. Kedar shared the details of several cases.
The Kotel
After Hadassah, we prayed at the Kotel and had a shehecheyanu blessing ceremony on a terrace above the Kotel tunnels. We visited the renovated Cardo Roman market where merchants thanked us for coming to Israel. In fact, we were touched by the heartfelt thanks for our presence from so many of the Israelis we met – the vendors, hotel employees, tour guides, restaurant staff, and the speakers and soldiers we met. We toured the newly excavated tunnels beneath the Kotel.
Day Two: May 13 – Volunteering
We headed to Gan Haim to volunteer at Leket Israel, Israel’s leading food rescue organization. Its focus is rescuing healthy, surplus food and delivering it to those in need through partner nonprofit organizations. Recipients include single mothers, refugees, youth at risk, immigrants, and housebound elderly throughout the country. Leket has collected 31,402 tons of fruits and vegetables and 2,084,000 hot meals for 415,000 recipients with the help of 95,000 volunteers.
Our job was to sort through huge crates of surplus fruits and vegetables and pack them into boxes to be delivered to schools.
Next, we toured the Vitkin Winery on Moshav Kfar Vitkin, near Netanya. The family who established the vineyard in 2001 reintroduced ancient winemaking to Israel.
Day Three: May 14 – The Gaza Envelope
Wednesday was the most emotional and impactful day. I am still processing what I saw and heard that day.
Our first stop was Kibbutz Kfar Aza,the second hardest hit kibbutz after Kibbutz Be’eri. Kibbutz Kfar Aza, founded in 1951, is just 1.9 miles from the Gaza border. It is now a closed war zone. Nearly every home in the community was either burned or riddled with bullet holes. We saw the evidence of both. Twenty percent of the residents were murdered or taken hostage.
An IDF colonel and a young soldier, Ouriya, led us around the kibbutz, following in the footsteps of the residents and sharing the horrific events of October 7th.
Three hundred terrorists breached the kibbutz gate and went from house to house. The kibbutzniks realized something was going on when they heard Arabic. Fifteen volunteers trained as first responders ran to the armory. Fourteen were murdered. Hamas knew where the armory was. Palestinian workers who were befriended by the kibbutz members betrayed them and gave vital information about the kibbutz to Hamas to facilitate their attack.
The one survivor at the armory, Ofir Libstein, 50, a prominent politician, was murdered as he returned home. His 80-year-old mother-in-law came outside to look and was shot dead. Nitzan, Libstein’s 19-year-old son was murdered in the younger generation housing, after having saved his fiancé by throwing grenades at the terrorists.
Calculated Attack Against the Youth
The youth village was attacked the most viciously. Hamas wanted to kill the youth and destroy the heart of the kibbutz. Nineteen people were killed there and 17 young hostages were taken captive, including Emily Damari and the twins Ziv and Gali Berman. We saw the burned and shattered homes of these precious young souls. The bodies were so badly burned that it took fifty days to recover a ring to be buried.
The IDF believes the October 7th massacre was in the planning for ten years. Hamas knew to first kill the female IDF observers at the border. Terrorists ambushed Highway 232 first responders and the IDF.
Seeing the breach of the border, the Palestinians followed Hamas and entered the kibbutz to loot, murder, and rape. Most of the kidnappings were done by civilians.
The parents in the home next to the border fence were murdered. Two young children survived in the house and were on the phone with the first responders for 17 hours. Their three-year-old was kidnapped with neighbors and thankfully was returned in the earlier hostage deals.
I will never forget the account of a young child on the phone with a first responder, who was asked to lock the front door of her house. To do that, she was instructed to close her eyes while passing the body of her dead mother on the kitchen floor.
Today the kibbutz is practically empty. We saw the volunteers renovating the kibbutz buildings and gardens. The youth village is being rebuilt and is awaiting completion until the Berman twins return.
Before we left Kfar Aza, Ouriya said, “All the families appreciate that you came, and you are now ambassadors of light for the hostages and victims.”
Nova Festival Site
The next stop was the Nova Festival site. The Nova Music Festival was an outdoor trance music festival set for the night of October 6th, 2023, in Re’im Forest, a little over three miles east of the Gaza Strip. It was billed as a celebration of “friends, love, and infinite freedom.” The festival attracted about 3,500 participants, mostly young Israelis.
Our guide said,“When you walk through the Nova site, you look into the eyes of the victims through their photos, and you can hear their silent cries asking for their stories to be told.”
Seeing the pictures of the souls who were killed was heartbreaking. Most attendees loved music and community, and as the posters in Israel stated, “They just wanted to dance.”
378 people were killed and many wounded. Hamas took 44 Israelis hostage, and many were subjected to sexual violence.
A white prayer tent was erected at the site. A Torah was being written in memory of those killed and visitors were invited to purchase a letter in the Torah.
Sderot
Sderot is the largest Israeli city that Hamas attacked on October 7th. Most of its 39,000 residents were evacuated to hotels across the country when the war began.
A Sderot resident said, “On October 7th our lives changed forever. Our mission is to spread the stories about those who have survived to tell [these stories].”
In Sderot, we visited a recently opened virtual reality exhibit, “Survived to Tell.” It was created by ISRAEL-IS, which leads the way in people-to-people advocacy, tackling the challenge of improving Israel’s global image.
We learned about the remarkable stories of five survivors of the October 7th massacre.
Day 4: May 15 – Jaffa/Tel Aviv
A woman named Liat came to our hotel to share her story of life with her husband, a super-warrior and Shin Bet (General Security Service) commander. He was killed on October 7th battling Hamas terrorists.His picture cannot be shown, as undercover operations are still dependent on his work.
We then toured the old city of Jaffa and the Asif Culinary Institute of Israel, which tells the history and culture of Israel through food. We sampled Yemenite, Ethiopian, and other multi-cultural delicacies in the Carmel Market.
At the closing dinner for the mission, we shared our impressions and our gratitude to Israel Bonds before heading to the airport. A siren indicating a Hamas rocket attack went off during check in. It reinforced what we had concluded during our trip, that Hamas must be eradicated.We all ran to the nearest “safe area.”
Conclusion
I leave you with these messages: Hamas isnot just Israel’s problem -Hamas is a world problem. Never again is now. The horrors of October 7th can never be permitted to happen again. “We will dance again.” This is the title of a 2024 Israeli documentary, a retelling of the Nova Music Festival massacre. It has become a popular slogan in Israel, indicating that Israel will not succumb to her enemies or to despair. We will rebuild and we will, indeed, dance again. We are a people of hope and resilience.
Ellen Geller Kamaras, CPA/MBA, is an International Coach Federation (ICF) Associate Certified Coach. Her coaching specialties include life, career, and dating coaching. Ellen can be contacted at ellen@lifecoachellen.com (www.lifecoachellen.com).