The Story of Dekel and Oshri from Kibbutz Be’eri

Dekel and Oshri lived on Kibbutz Be’eri with their three young children, until October 7. Their house was the only one in a row of four that was not entered by Hamas terrorists. But as they heard the carnage in adjacent homes, they were certain that they were next. As with all survivors, we will never know why they were spared.

After living in a hotel by the Dead Sea for almost a month – where all Be’eri survivors have been housed temporarily - the family left Israel last week, possibly forever, for the United States.

Anywhere. Just far away.

Dekel’s mother weeps to see her family torn apart. She says she wasn’t prepared for this. But she vows to rebuild Kibbutz Be’eri.

“I’m not afraid of them,” she defiantly tells her daughter.

“Mom. They’re not afraid of us. That’s what you don’t understand,” Dekel responds, as she packs the meagre belongings her family has salvaged.

Dekel’s 88-year-old grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, came with his caregiver for a heartbreaking goodbye. He sobs. “The worst part is that I may never see you again.”

For those who survived the inferno in Europe, separation and loss are experienced on a magnitude that is shattering. Nothing is more devastating for them.

Chillingly, Dekel’s grandfather was also among the small group of youth activists who founded Kibbutz Be’eri on October 6, 1946. Seventy-seven years later, practically to the day, Hamas savages destroyed so much. Much more than just the physical structures.

Kibbutz Be'eri - Oct. 11, 2023 - Photo by Ziv Koren

Shortly after Black Saturday, upon learning she was expecting, Dekel decided with her husband to terminate the pregnancy.

“How could I have a fourth child now? We are not the same parents we were. Our children are not the same children.”

Her four-and-a-half-year-old son asks constantly about who from their close-knit community has died.

The little boy’s great-grandfather should have been spared this grief. He weeps. This is not what a four-year-old should be thinking about. And, surely, it takes the old man back to the horrors of Europe that he survived. To see this visited upon his great-grandson. In Israel? Where Jews are meant to protect themselves?

No one can process or comprehend the darkness that Jewish people are living through.

This past month has been a blur. And the surreal but all too real antisemitism that has been unleashed is incomprehensible. Again. Everything is unmoored. We look back to the 1930s and ask – “How could they not have seen it coming?”

Now, we know.

If you would like to watch the seven minute television segment from Israel’s channel 11, here is the link. https://www.kan.org.il/content/kan/kan-actual/p-11894/news-item/592935/

And you do not have to understand Hebrew. This vignette transcends spoken language.