Dear Friends,
Before presenting my account of visiting the site of the Nova Massacre outside of Kibbutz Re’im, we need to look at a personal account of a survivor as related by Yoni Kempinski in Arutz Sheva:
Natalie Sanandaji, a survivor of the massacre at the Supernova Music Rave on October 7, spoke to Arutz Sheva – Israel National News from the scene of the music festival where hundreds of people were murdered.
“My strongest memories are the ones where we were happy, the ones before the whole attack happened, the ones where I was dancing right next to so many of these people who didn’t survive,” Sanandaji said. “Memories of them smiling at me. None of us could have known what was going to happen next.”
She recounted the moments the terrorist onslaught began. “One of the most terrifying feelings was when we first started running. Maybe about 20 minutes into running, we saw dozens of people running in our direction. We suddenly realized that the Hamas terrorists were coming from multiple directions. We thought that they were just behind us, but when you see so many people running in your direction you realize they’re being chased after, they’re being shot at. Ad you suddenly realize the Hamas terrorists are closing in from multiple directions and you now have to change directions. The direction that you were running in isn’t safe. You’re running towards the terrorists. That was probably one of the most terrifying feelings.”
According to Sanandaji, one of the reasons she survived together with the group she was running with was that they did not stop to hide from the terrorists. “At a certain point, maybe two hours into running, we ran into some friends of ours who were hiding in a ditch, and they told us to join them and to hide in this ditch from the terrorists. A few of us started crawling into the ditch, and then one of my friends started yelling at us that this is a bad idea, and that if we stay and hide in this ditch and the Hamas terrorists find us, that we’ll be sitting ducks and they’ll just shoot us on the spot. So he told us our only option for survival was to continue running and that hiding is not an option.”
“Unfortunately, we later found out that he was right, because our friends who stayed and hid in that ditch did not make it out alive. They were shot and killed on the spot,” she said.
She explained that “It’s important for me to tell the story because I want people to see a face to this story. When the whole world is dehumanizing Jews and acting like this massacre was a form of resilience to ‘free Palestine,’ I feel that maybe putting a face to the story will show them how human this story is. Because if they’re just reading about this story in an article, if they’re just seeing someone on the news talk about it who wasn’t there, I don’t think they’re gonna feel as emotional about it. I don’t think they’re gonna feel connected to it.”
“I hope that when they see my face, when they see that there’s a face to this story, that they’ll feel more connected to it. And maybe they’ll change their mind about how they feel about everything that happened on October 7.
“If we let them take our joy away, the joy of living, then we’ve let them win. And we’re not gonna let them win. Of course, we’re gonna dance again,” she concluded.
Driving down I first stopped at Kfar Aza and then at Beram hoping to see and smell, firsthand the pain of the place. Private cars weren’t allowed entry. The gates were jittery. And the people guarding the gates were jittery. And the people inside wanted to blanket themselves in the privacy of their pain. An intimacy they weren’t sharing with the public. They told me to go to the site of the Nova Festival Massacre. That it’s there I’ll find pain open to the public. I passed several groups of soldiers along the way and felt disappointed I didn’t take my coffee maker. I would have enjoyed making them espresso and I’m sure they would have enjoyed it too. But today I was on a different mission. A mission to find pain. And to honor pain.
Arriving at the Nova Festival parking lot, I parked my car, got out, and began walking towards the site of the festival. Listening. Listening for voices crying, voices that were no longer heard. But I was listening for the everlasting cries that never cease. I was feeling for the bump against me as those running ran into me in chaotic hysteria. Of course, nobody was running, but I was braced to be bumped into by those whose running will never stop. I was feeling for the chaotic atmosphere that, no matter how tranquil, no matter how serene, will be forever chaotic.
The soul can hear what the eyes cannot see. The soul can hear what the ears cannot hear. The soul can feel what the skin cannot feel. As much as I was seeing with my eyes, hearing with my ears, and feeling with my skin; I was also seeing with the eyes of my soul, hearing with the ears of my soul, and feeling with the touch of my soul. Being with those who will always be there. I walked. Wandered. Met a man writing a Sefer Torah, a scroll of the Torah, sponsored by the Jewish National Fund. Met a Coloniel in the Navy who brought his brigade to experience the dead. The dead for who we live. I met a man from Boston and a woman from somewhere in the USA who came to honor the dead.
I walked around, meandering through the burned-out Eucalyptus Trees. Burned-out trees still full of life. Burned-out earth, scorched soil pining to be replanted. Pining to nurture seeds not yet sown. I walked through a field. A field of exquisite beauty. Trees. Burned trunks with green leaves. Thick green forage. Red clover wildflowers. Yellow wildflowers. Purple wildflowers. Green grass. Wildflowers. Wildflowers. Blue sky. White clouds. Earthen cliffs. Brooks. Serenity in the sky. Serenity on the ground. I sat. The poem and melody of The Butterfly by Pavel Friedman drifted into my mind’s ear. Feeling the earth beneath me. My body felt one with the earth. My blood felt as if it were flowing out of my veins and into the veins and arteries of the earth and then back into my veins in perfect circulation. Body and earth. Earth and body.
I felt Jewish. Very Jewish. Proudly Jewish. Wholy Jewish. A Jewishness that transcends time and place. At that moment I could be Jewish in Spain six hundred years ago, or Jewish in Bahgdad two thousand years ago, or Jewish in Jerusalem three thousand years ago, or Jewish in Brooklyn twenty years ago, or Jewish in Tiberias, or Jewish in Re’im, now. My blood felt Jewish. My breath felt Jewish. The blood they spilled was my blood as much as it was theirs and theirs as much as it was mine. The breath they snuffed out was my breath as much as it was theirs and theirs as much as it was mine. And every Jewish drop of blood and every Jewish breath was both wiped out in the death of those massacred and continues to circulate and breathe in the lives of the survivors, and every Jewish person everywhere is a survivor.
I stood and continued walking. After several paces, I came upon the outline of a car that was burned, tattoed, onto the earth. Ugliness amidst such beauty. Tranquility co-existing with tragedy and chaos. Death and life. Life and death. Yin and Yang. Yang and Yin. The definitive dissolving into the indefinite. The timely merging into the timeless. Timeless and placeless. The Place of the Nova Festival will be always crying and always smiling. Always rending and always dancing. I passed a sign for the parking lot that had been hidden by the weeds. A parking lot that many of those parked there would never return from. I passed a series of large ditches, geographic anomalies that festivalgoers used to hide. None of those who hid in those ditches survived. They were shot.
By the time I arrived back at my car, it was getting dark. There were packs of well-fed dogs. Brought to the festival by their owners. Now fed by the many pilgrims and soldiers who visit the site. The dogs are themselves a type of living remembrance of their one-time owners. Big bangs were heard and felt as our artillery, or, perhaps, as the ghosts of those killed, took haunting and terrific retribution against their killers. I left the parking lot and continued driving. I passed by numerous rectangular areas of charred road the size of a car. Areas in which the road had been burned by the heat and the fire of the burning cars. I passed by Kibbutz Re’im from a distance.
I got out of the car and saw, from a distance of about two hundred and fifty meters, the burned-out remains of a home. I listened for screams that will be heard for eternity. I got back into my car and drove away, feeling. Feeling myself in a way I had never felt myself. My Jewishness. My humanity. As I drove past lush green fields, I felt as if I was being chased by rapists and murderers on parasails. How far must I drive until they’re no longer chasing me? How far must I drive until I’m safe? They’re there. The rapists. The murderers. They will always be there. Riding their parasails. Mocking us. Terrifying us. Rape doesn’t just go away. Rape, and murder, like all trauma, must be lived through. Endured. If not by the individual, by the nation.
That night, as I lay in bed with closed eyes, I could see them. I could see the festival goers. There, peaceful, serene, in the fields of Re’im.
I’m uneasy about soliciting funding after writing such a letter. But, perhaps, to the contrary, now more than ever, let us contribute to those who are fighting.
https://thechesedfund.com/theunityfarmfoundation/support-our-israeli-soldiers
Stay safe!
Binyamin Klempner
Thank you Peter, for helping me to … “seeing with the eyes of my soul, hearing with the ears of my soul, and feeling with the touch of my soul.”
your friend,
Mark