Meet Shani.
A proud Jewish Israeli woman of Iranian descent. The days since October 7th have seen her move from agony to hope and back again countless times. This period in time has reaffirmed her dedication to not only her faith, but to her people.
Shani’s life pre-October 7th was as normal as yours and mine. She had her career and her personal life. She was planning for upcoming trips around the world, and was preparing for Midburn (Israel’s equivalent to Burning Man) with friends. Midburn was scheduled to take place on November 6th at Reim, the same location as the Nova Festival, which obviously concerned members of Shani’s party due to the proximity to Gaza. However, they never questioned that they wouldn’t be safe at Midburn.And then the sirens of October 7th rang out and in the blink of an eye nothing else mattered anymore. Everything else was meaningless once Shani saw the video footage of Naama Levy bleeding, wearing soiled and bloody sweatpants, being dragged from the trunk of the black Jeep surrounded by armed terrorists.
Shani understood that this was not Hamas-rockets-as-usual. This was a different event, something that we have never seen or experienced before. This was the intentional targeting of women; the rape, mutilation, and kidnapping of women in their prime. The women were shiny and happy from a night of dancing at Nova; they were beautiful. And Shani had one thought constantly running through her mind. “What’s going to happen to the women?” A question that we are still asking ourselves, even though we know the answer. The moment she saw Naama’s horrific capture it dawned on her what was going on, and she was overwhelmed with fear and sadness, and shocked at the evil that we all watched unfold before our eyes.
On October 8th Shani couldn’t stay home. She threw on a sweatshirt and headed to Dizengoff Square at 8:30 AM. And what she was a part of may surprise many of us, but it is common to Israelis. People were coming out of their homes with boxes, with snacks and dried food, with underwear, with toothbrushes and toothpaste, with anything that they had that could better serve someone else. The public square became a de-facto warehouse. By noon, hundreds of people filled the square, collecting, sorting, organizing, boxing, and sending all the items that were flowing in around the country.
One man was making lists of military bases and people would take boxes, load them into their cars and head off to make the deliveries. Shani reconnected with a friend she hadn’t seen in 20 years who offered his car up, and the pair united to help get necessities to the front lines. They drove back and forth all day under incessant rocket fire, to the bases closest to the Gaza border to hand off everything from socks to tactical gear.
As they approached the different military bases, Shani was surprised to see the physical manifestation of a civilian reservist army of thousands of people – cars by the hundreds lining the roads, as if a convoy. Handing off supplies was more difficult than she realized. Being Israeli, Shani knew that a ground invasion into Gaza meant the loss of life for Israeli soldiers. At times she was too scared to look into their eyes, fearing that the next time she might see their faces would be on the news.
Shani and her driver friend would also partner with Tel Aviv restaurants, including HaAchim, to ensure that soldiers received proper meals. They recruited another friend who owned several trucks to help increase the volume of food that could be taken to different bases.
“We went to bases that you couldn’t even imagine – the last barricades before Gaza. My friend asked, ‘are you sure you want to do that? It’s dangerous and we still have terrorists around.’ ‘Yes! Drive! I don’t care’ answered Shani. Nothing was going to stop her from doing anything she could to aid her brave countrymen and women, including scouring the country searching for underwear and socks that she promised to a soldier and his troop. She eventually found some, purchased the store’s entire stock, and was able to successfully hand off all of the packages to the soldiers that requested them.
At one base she saw her friend Itamar, the CEO of a unicorn start-up in Israel’s high-tech sector, who had recently moved to New York. Being surprised to see him, Shani asked the obvious question “what are you doing here?” to which he answered “there’s a war, I’m here. I’m doing my duty and serving my country.” Shani would check in on him regularly. One month into the war she finds out that Itamar has been severely injured along with his commander. They are both currently rehabilitating.
On October 9th Shani received a message from a friend who needed help with fundraising, and since Shani is a professional fundraiser, she rolled up her sleeves, went to Expo Tel Aviv, Israel’s conference centre, and got to work. The energy was manic, thousands of people were screaming, making phone calls; no one really knew what was going on but they each took on an initiative to help. At one desk there were VC directors answering calls from people who needed to be rescued from their homes, at another there were real estate businessmen coordinating the shivas for people who not only lost their family, but their homes as well. Shani heard every horror story imaginable. Parents murdered in front of their children, who now needed to sit shiva alone. Of baby Avigayil - whose parents were killed while she was in their arms and went looking for help by going door to door of friends from her kindergarten. Eventually she was abducted to Gaza at the age of 3 (she turned 4 in captivity), while her siblings hid in a closet for hours.
It was the first time that cyber experts from across every major company were gathered in one location – Google, Amazon, and Microsoft – all working together, led by a cyber expert from Reichman University, to cross reference lists of Nova Festival attendees with the videos recorded by Hamas, Telegram accounts, and the Dark Web to see who was missing, injured, kidnapped, killed, or still hiding.
Shani has been volunteering there ever since. It has given her a new sense of meaning.
The beginning of the war was full of moments of despair. She heard the most inhuman, evil, horrific accounts of what Hamas did on October 7th; evil that hadn’t been attempted since Mengele during the Holocaust. Shani thought that this could be the end of humanity, of humankind. Afterall, we do not deserve this planet if this is what human beings can stoop to. She began to look at her own life to try to determine what her exit strategy would be to avoid the same fate that befell the hostages – should she get a gun or a knife or jump from a window if the terrorists made it to Tel Aviv?
But volunteering saved her. “I cry a lot. I hear the stories and they break you. I still get emotional every time I have to repeat them to visiting delegations.” Shani is working to help ‘moshiv ha’ruach’ or ‘return the spirit’ to some of the villages impacted by the massacre. She helps them with everything they need while evacuated, and is helping rehabilitate the kibbutz so that eventually there will be a place to return to. She also helps coordinate events for soldiers who have been away from their homes and families for months in order to boost morale.
She recounts of tales of horror turned to heroism. Of lives forever changed in an instant. Of the impact of October 7th that will last for the next 30 years. The trauma endured, the families torn apart and ultimately rearranged, the living with loss.
“We’re all soldiers now. Whatever I can do, I’m doing. Everyone was doing something. Everyone had that need and urge to help. No one could stay at home. That is what makes us so unique. We are not into revenge. We are into love, supporting and helping each other.”
Before October 7th, Israel was at a breaking point. The left vs. the right. The secular vs. the religious. Everyone has put that aside to unite and fight for the greater good. At every point in Jewish history destruction has come when we have been divided. History is doomed to repeat itself if we don’t learn from it.
Shani is worried that we haven’t learned from it. “We all need to come together. No one has ownership over anything. We need to listen to each other’s pain, to sit at the table together and compromise. We need to be embracing each other, and we are not.”
“I’m not religious, but I have faith. I’m Jewish. I’m going to stay Jewish. I’m not going to break the chain that my ancestors kept in Iran. My grandmother had to hide her Judaism in Iran, but kept her traditions and passed them mother to daughter, and I am not going to break that chain because I want to be secular and liberal here in Israel. Everyone has a right to live the way they want to.”
We all have to sit together and talk. There shouldn’t be any hatred.
The eternal nation isn’t afraid of a long path, the Jewish people are here to stay and aren’t going anywhere. The Jewish community globally understands that they can’t continue on the path the were, to keep assimilating to be accepted. We are done being apologetic, we have to hold our heads high. This war brought us all together in a way, but we have a lot of work to do.
“My hope and my blessing is that we, as a Jewish community, will stay closer; that we will stay united. I’m hopeful, and I will do whatever I can and help whoever I can.”
Comments