This is the story of Alon Ohel, based on my interview with his mother in Israel in February. I heard Alon's piano playing on the news which put him on my radar and into my heart. I highly recommend watching this video to understand who you are reading about as his aura is angelic and his playing is masterful and nothing short of exquisite.
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Alon Ohel had not planned on going to the Nova Music Festival, but he had just gotten home from six months abroad, and his friends missed him. Like many Israelis after their mandatory army service at 18, he had rewarded himself with a huge trip to Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India and Nepal.
His friend Ayelet’s brother was the organizer of the event, so Alon had also gotten a great ticket price.
Ayelet would be murdered at the event.
Alon wouldn’t know this however as he had already been dragged onto the terrorist’s truck by his hair and taken to Gaza.
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Alon was one of the first to escape the Nova festival, around 6:30 or 7 in the morning, after thousands of rockets were shot through the sky at 6:29am.
He and his friends realized they needed to split up. The car he was in headed north, but was turned around by police, who did not yet know there were thousands of Hamas terrorists all over Israel’s south but had heard there was “something going on” in Sderot.
Therefore, Alon and his friends had to turn around and head back south, toward the party.
They pulled over to seek shelter in a now infamous bomb shelter (the one with
the bird on it) – in Re’im.
It would be 30 minutes before Hamas arrived, and since none of these kids could predict their fate, they did what Israelis do – made fast friends, as more and more kids began to arrive, including Or and Eynav Levy who I wrote about here, and Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose American mother was recently featured in Time Magazine (see story here.)
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“Did you go inside the shelter?” his Mom asked me in our interview.
“No…I um…was looking for it, but couldn’t find the bird.”
“It’s not about the bird – but did you pull over, get out of the car, and actually go inside any of the shelters?”
I felt such guilt as she pressed, as I had driven with a friend to Kibbutz Be’eri (to witness that horror) and noticed tiny colorful structures next to bus stops so asked my friend if those were the shelters. We were running late though and he didn't seem to know, so regrettably, we did not stop and go into one.
Idit explained that she had just been taken to the south to go inside the shelter, and when she entered this space, the size of a parking spot, she could not imagine how 30 people had gotten inside.
“The first thing I thought – and it’s weird and it’s not so weird – is you know...when they were taking Jews during the second world war, on the train to Auschwitz, and they put 300 people in a place where maybe 60 could fit…I was like…wow…and the fact that seven people survived this terrible massacre - is only because it was so cramped – and they were so tight – person to person – that when they shot them, some people survived because others were like human shields – do you understand what I’m saying?”
Of course I did, as Hamas uses the Palestinians in this way, to keep themselves alive, and because I heard a woman named Lee Sasi talk about lying for six hours underneath dead bodies in one of these shelters, after witnessing her uncle blow up from a grenade in front of her eyes.
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Hamas terrorists arrived at the shelter.
For nine minutes, they threw grenades inside and Alon and Amir Shapira – threw them back.
The first seven grenades were shot back toward the terrorists, but the eighth, caught by Amir Shapira, exploded and killed him.
Now people were injured in this packed shelter, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose left hand was blown off.
Alon and his friends were trying to calm everyone down in the midst of this horror and chaos, and if you are wondering (as I did) how his mother knew all of these things, it is because recordings exist, from kids who came back and a few who were killed but left phones behind.
Recordings where you can hear the arrival of death and the agony of the injured, and this is how she knows that it took 30 minutes for her son and three other men to be taken hostage.
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Following the grenade explosion, Hamas reentered the shelter and tried to take whoever was standing. It is believed that they selected Or Levy at this time, and put him on their truck. (Or’s wife Eynav was either already killed in the shelter or about to be, and their two-year-old son still awaits both parents, though he has now been told by two sets of grandparents and a psychologist that his mother is never coming home).
They then selected Eli Cohen.
Then Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and then –
Idit’s dogs interrupt us. They are very upset and frightened by the sounds of construction in her neighbor’s garden. She switches casually into dog comforting mode and disappears for a minute, while I breathe, stuck in the suspense of this real-life-story she is much too used to telling.
Idit is back, and introduces her Shitsu to me (he looks like Benji).
“Okay – anyway – where was I?
So, Hamas comes in and talks to them and says ‘Okay – who wants to come with us?’ Obviously, nobody wants to, so then they take them and grab them, and--”
“Wait,” I said. “Did they really say that? They said ‘Who wants to come with us?’”
“Yes,” Idit replies. “In the first second, they go inside and say, in a very… ‘humanistic’ way, ‘Who wants to come with us?’ and then of course…you know, they come to my son and they say ‘Come with us’ and he says “No, I’m not coming with you,’ and they say ‘No, come,’…and then they just take him. So…that’s what happened. You can hear it…you can hear that.
They grabbed my son, and he’s like – on the ground – (he doesn’t stand because he doesn’t want to go) – so they’re like - grabbing him, and pulling him by his hair onto the truck…so, after they put him on the truck and they start to leave, Hamas goes back inside the shelter and starts shooting everybody.”
Wait – what?
“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” I interrupt again. “Are you saying the grenades happened first, then they kidnapped people, and then they started shooting people?”
I was asking as Michael Levy had been sure his brother Or had witnessed his wife’s murder before he was taken hostage, but perhaps he didn’t know his wife was murdered after all.
“No,” Idit says. “My son – if he hasn’t heard the news, then he doesn’t know his two friends were murdered that day. They don’t know because they were taken, they were kidnapped…and then Hamas went back inside and did the shooting, making sure that everybody is dead…obviously, after they shoot everyone they think they’re dead because there are bodies over bodies, and whoever survived somehow…they don’t know that…so they’re like – lying underneath bodies for about six hours trying to survive, and after that a man, who was looking for his son, (his son ended up being dead in a different bomb shelter)…he came in asking ‘Who’s alive? Who’s alive?’”
Idit tells me how the kids were afraid to trust the Hebrew at first, but finally found the courage to tell him they were alive, and this man, who did not yet know of his own son’s murder, took all seven survivors – out of a group that had only recently been 30 kids – to Soroka Hospital, where their injuries were tended to and their lives were saved.
“So – this is what happened from the bomb shelter point of view, and now I’ll tell you what we had. What happened to us – during these hours.”
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Idit and Kobi live in the north of Israel, where there were no incoming rocket sirens going off, so it was a normal Saturday morning, and they were out walking their dogs.
Her father called at 7:30am, asking about Alon. She explained that Alon was at the party.
“Oh okay – so you’ve been in contact with him?”
“No – why?”
“Well, because there’s something going on, and we have to be sure he’s okay.”
They texted Alon asking what was going on with him. At 8:08am, they received a text back saying that he’s in a bomb shelter, and that he is okay. Her husband asked him to send pictures, but they didn’t hear back.
They would later understand that there was bad phone reception inside the shelters, and that…when he was taken…his phone fell…and this was when the message sent.
“Before Hamas came, he probably went outside the shelter to see if the rockets had stopped…and at that point he saw our message and answered us…but it probably didn’t send because he was back in the shelter with Hamas…and only when his phone fell…it sent.”
Her daughter Inbar, 14, called Alon’s phone constantly, until a woman picked up at 11:30.
Idit took the phone and spoke to this woman, who was whispering that they were shooting at them and they needed help. Her name was Amit, but she did not know Alon. The story of Amit remains a mystery until now, as she was originally put onto the truck with the others, but somehow got down and hid behind the bomb shelter.
At 2:30 that afternoon Alon’s phone got answered by a man at Soroka Hospital, so they asked if Alon was taken there and sent pictures, but he wasn’t, so Idit’s husband Kobi left for the hospital to get Alon’s phone, while Idit called the hospital every 30 minutes to see if he had been brought in.
Kobi eventually heard back from a friend, who said that Alon was not going to be at Soroka Hospital and told him he should go home. On his way back, his friend called him again and informed him that Alon had been kidnapped. He said somebody had witnessed it.
“So, he gets home, and – I don’t know this, right? He gets home at 10 o’clock at night and tells me Alon was kidnapped...‘and that’s when our…‘massau’ (journey)…starts in this life.’”
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I asked about his piano playing, as it was for him that the piano was put in Hostage Square by his mom, in hopes his soul would feel the music being played for him by all, and in hopes this symbol of Alon, would bring healing for all the families.
“You Are Not Alone,” the piano reads, in large yellow letters.
I then asked his mom how she is doing, and how the family is doing. I said something like – “It’s been 142 days – I imagine there are waves—”
“Yes, it changes,” she said matter-of-factly. “Let’s put it this way: when Kobi came home and looked me in the eyes and told me he was kidnapped, it took me a second – a moment – to understand what I was going to do – that I had a choice: that I could either go into bed and cry and not get out of bed until Alon comes, or I can fight and do something about it.
You know, when I think about Alon, the fact that he was very active during the whole ordeal, he wasn’t like – in a “freeze” moment – he was fighting for his life, you know? He was doing. He was calling the police, he was throwing grenades, he was fighting…and I’m thinking about it…and I’m doing the same, and I don’t know if he got that from me or I got that from him, but there’s like – two things that were…that are…on my mind:
1 - That I have no control over what is going on with Alon, of where he is or when he’s coming back or whatever, but I have control over what kind of home he’s going to come back to. That’s something that I work very hard for, to make sure that he comes back to a very good, strong home, that he will have everything he needs and…not just my home, but that this country will be…that it will be able to help whoever…the hostages...that come back…as a country.
2 – The second thing…is that I have control over what I say - that I have control over how I ‘give’ to what’s happening, of what I say, of how I say it, of when I say it…that I have control over my thoughts and the things that I think of…I have control over that…
…and these are the two things I have control over, and it helps me – cope – with the fact that he’s not here.
At this point there is a pause. It’s a long pause, a ‘pregnant’ pause, and I knew to stay silent, and sure enough, she continued.
"You know…I think that many people, when they think about talking with hostage families, there’s a misconception.
I mean…I know that we as a family are different in the way we see things, but it’s because like, in a statistical way…when somebody dies, you know how you’re supposed to act. You know what you’re supposed to say…most people think that the mother is going to be very sad…that this is going to be very sad and very dark…and you come to give support.
So, people in the beginning, they were coming to my house in this mood of a “shiva,” [a seven-day mourning period, normally after a funeral]. They said, ‘We are here for you,” and…it’s something you say when somebody dies…
...and I couldn't…I had a very hard time with that…
…and up until today, people come and say to me, when they interview me, they will say, “So, how was your night? You probably are very fatigued, or you must have anxiety…and even now, I just came back from this free facial someone has been offering me for some time, so I went…and then she said stuff – she said – ‘You know, I can work on your pressure points, with needles, like Chinese needles, for anxiety – and I said:
'NO. I don’t want the needles. I don’t want anything,” and I’m thinking in my head, I don’t have anxiety. I don’t have sleep issues. I don’t have that! I have sadness…and…I miss my son.'"
And it is here that she stops talking and begins to cry.
“You know,” she continues, “I'm fine,” she says through her tears. "I don’t have depression. I don’t have these things that people are supposed to have when somebody dies or whatever. I don’t have that, and – people telling me that – or automatically thinking that I have that…is frustrating.
There’s a difference between being sad, and missing my son…that is what I feel…and I don’t have anxiety or panic attacks…why should I have that? I’m a normal person, but my son is over in another country right now, and I don’t know what’s going on with him. I cannot talk with him, so I miss him, so I’m sad because of what he’s going through, but that doesn’t put me in a state where I’m not in control over my life, you know?”
And I did know. I knew that anyone and everyone in this unthinkable reality would handle it differently, and I knew from my mom, who became a grief counselor after close friends of hers lost their young son…I knew that people, when they don’t know what to say or how to behave, often say something that doesn’t help at all, no matter their intentions, in an attempt to comfort, and that sometimes, or maybe often, what they say only aggravates an already fragile situation.
It was this part of the interview that would stay with me, and that would move me to tears no matter how many times I listened to it, and it was this part of the interview that I debated over including, and struggled over how to include, and it is also the main reason it has been more than three months since this interview, which just happens to be my only interview to date with the mother of a hostage.
After this, she spoke of what happens in Israel if she is wearing a shirt with Alon on it, or carrying a poster. She is often asked “Who is he to you?” and she says, “I’m his mother.”
She said that no matter how many times this happens, the reaction is always a gasp and an “OH MY G-D,” and that sometimes this causes her to think that only a second ago, Alon was just another face…like a face on a milk carton in the US.
"A face is something people notice, but it doesn't really affect them...but if they went to school with this person, then…you know, sometimes it’s like they're just seeing the face of somebody, but they're not really seeing the person as being kind...but since I’m the mother of somebody, the closest you can get to this person, it…does something to people, and that’s why it’s so important for us (my family and the families) to speak with people, because it makes it real, that this is not a movie, that I’m a person, and I have a son who's in Gaza, and it helps because that person will always remember that – that they met me, his Mom.'”
She then commended me and the significance of my documenting these stories, of telling what is happening in Israel right now for generations to come.
“It’s important,” she repeats, and for a fleeting moment I felt the validation and love of my late mother, whose ten-year yurtzeit (anniversary of her death) was just one week away.
“We have an ability now that we didn’t have before. The Jewish people didn’t have the power of speaking while they were being taken to gas chambers."
As if she was born to give interviews, she paused with poise, and began yet again.
“Yet…what I think is most important, is there’s like this ideal…
…like before when World War II was happening, there was no place for the Jewish people to go, and that’s why Israel is very important for the Jewish people, who think that if there is going to be another Hitler somewhere, that there is a place where they can go and hide – and they will have a place that they can call home, and…this illusion of a place that they can be a part of…so…most Jewish people visit Israel sometimes, or donate, and even Israelis who leave Israel to live abroad, they plan to retire back in Israel one day…but…
…if the hostages don’t come home, then there is no place for anybody here, because if Israeli citizens were taken from their homes and from this land…and the government and everybody doesn’t think that they can bring them home – doesn’t do enough to bring them home – then it’s not a safe place for anyone.”
Now, imagine my hesitation to include this, when I myself just spent four months in Israel alone during a war and felt no fear, and when I myself am planning my move back and likely to a place like Be’eri, less than two miles from Gaza.
How can I say something that will potentially put fear into Diaspora Jews from visiting or immigrating to Israel at a time when the country so desperately needs our moral and financial support?
But she wasn’t saying to fear coming to Israel – she was making a very significant point.
If Israel is there for Diaspora Jews as a 'beacon on a hill,' or at least as a last resort should it be needed, then Diaspora Jews need to help bring the hostages home, to ensure that Israel remains what it needs to be, what it was meant to be, not just for Israelis born and raised there who speak Hebrew and serve in the army, but for all of us.
Incredibly, she was reminding me of the ‘aha’ moment I had on my Birthright trip long ago, which was my first trip to Israel and the moment I learned that I was the only one in a group of 100 who was so ignorant that I put in writing during an evening activity that Israel belonged more to those born and raised in the country than it belonged to me, who at the time was galivanting the globe, clueless as ever.
Israel apparently belonged equally to all the Jews of the world, since this was how the other 99 trip goers and leaders answered, which made me beyond grateful that the answer I put into an envelope on a torn piece of paper would forever be anonymous.
I had stared at the six 19-year-old female soldiers who had joined our group and was absolutely dumbfounded. How did I have equal right? Equal "access"?
Within the year, I had made Aliyah.
“That’s how I see it,” she continued, “so I think that Jewish people all over the world – you need to make sure that the hostages come back. Otherwise, you won’t have a home to come back to.”
I made a tremendous effort to get this written for Mother’s Day weekend to surprise Idit, but after listening to her interview and remembering how powerful she was, I had to allow myself more time, but since then, I must state what has been on my mind: since 1948 (and probably long before that), Israelis have fought and fallen, making the ultimate sacrifice for us, to protect us – the Jews around the world, yet they have never asked us for anything. They have never asked for our help.
But right now they need us, as not only do they have missiles attacking from every direction, but the fabric of society is torn, as unlike most countries, everyone in Israel feels everyone’s hardship – everyone genuinely is a part of the families enduring this agony of uncertainly over their loved one’s predicament, and unless and until the remaining hostages are brought back, and brought back alive, then there is a risk that what is torn will not mend, and that the communal heart of Israel will remain broken.
The Jewish people have always found ways, in the face of adversity and often the impossible, to prevail, and now is our test as a people and as a nation.
May we work together and find a way to help our brothers and sisters in Israel bring their people home, as it is only after this that they as a nation and we as a people can begin to heal and begin to rebuild and be the resilient people we have always proven ourselves to be.
Shabbat shalom...(and if you didn't watch Alon play at the beginning, I highly recommend you do so now, as few things can add magic to the soul like the talent of this young man.)
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In case you want to help:
I am saving to move back to Israel by the end of the year, to continue telling the stories of the hostages, and to cover the rebuilding of Kibbutz Be'eri. Please help me by contributing to my GoFundMe .
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