The site of the Nova Music Festival where 364 young Israelis were kidnapped, raped and murdered by Hama terrorists.
My wife and I joined a Solidarity Mission to Israel in March from Temple Isaiah in Lafayette, led by our Rabbi Jill Perlman following the Oct.7, 2023, terrorist attacks. We were in Israel for five days meeting with journalists, rabbis, professors and businesspeople, touring volunteer organizations and doing volunteer projects.
Our Mission motto was “Bring them home NOW.”
One of the towns we visited was Netiv Ha’Asarah, where we met Micah Shmilowitz. The following includes his account of the day of the attacks.
The Morning of Oct 7
Micah Shmilowitz awakened early Saturday morning, Oct. 7, 2023, hearing automatic gunfire coming from an AK-47, widely used by Hamas. He gathered his family into the safe room in his home, constructed of reinforced concrete and steel and designed as a bomb shelter. He grabbed his automatic pistol and realized that his neighbors were being shot. His Moshav (town) sits literally on the Gaza border in Southern Israel.
Three Hamas hang gliders sailed over the walls separating Gaza from Israel carrying automatic weapons and explosives. Shmilowitz and his neighbors killed two terrorists, but not before 20 neighbors were slaughtered, including an 80-year-old grandmother shot in a community bomb shelter at point-blank range with an AK-47. I saw the spot where she was killed. It was unforgettable.
Shmilowitz’s family and many neighbors relocated from the Gaza strip in 2005 when Israel turned it over to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Hamas and the PLO fought for control of Gaza, with Hamas prevailing in the election and the bloody fighting. Shmilowitz told us his neighbors hired the Gazans to work nearby and paid them far more than they could have earned in Gaza. I asked him, “What now?”
His answer was anguished: ”How can I trust my neighbors from Gaza again?”
The Site of the Music Festival
That same day we visited the gut-wrenching site of the Nova Music Festival near Gaza. Almost 364 young festival patrons were murdered, tortured and raped, and another 40 were kidnapped and brought to Gaza as hostages.
We met a 20-year-old concert survivor who recounted the sounds of automatic weapons and people screaming. The festival site now displays photos of the murdered and kidnapped victims. Our group recited Kaddish for the murdered and “lit memorial candles to honor our commitment to not forget” per Rabbi Perlman.
Demonstrations to Bring Hostages Home
We visited Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, where the main hostage demonstrations take place to “BRING THEM HOME.”
One memorable display was a massive, empty table with photos of the hostages at each place setting. We also met with evacuees who were still in a state of shock. The Israel government relocated over 200,000 people away from Israel’s borders with Lebanon, Syria and around the Gaza Strip. The evacuee mothers were most concerned about keeping their families and communities together while in transition, including schooling for their children.
Our History and Why We Went
Why did we join this Mission to Israel? My mother was born in Kassel, Germany, in the late 1920s. My family prospered until the mid-1930s when the Nazi’s began adopting discriminatory laws against the Jews.
My grandfather, Max, announced in 1936 that his immediate family was relocating to the U.S. However, many family members stayed in Germany thinking that the “political winds” would change. Surely, Hitler was not serious! Many family members were later sent to concentration camps and perished. A few survived and finally immigrated to the United States.
We lost six million Jews in the Holocaust, including one-and-a-half million children. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists murdered 1,163 mostly young or defenseless Israelis, including 30 Americans. Another 240 Israelis, including children, were abducted (some have been released).
If the U.S. were attacked by terrorists losing the equivalent percentage of our population, over 40,000 people, what would we have done? This day was the worst for Jews since the Holocaust! “Never Again” was why we went to Israel.
Michael Peiser can be contacted at rubiesq2048@gmail.com.
At the entrance of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, in which the Museum staff created an empty dining table representing those who lost their lives on Oct. 7, 2023.
