In the summer of 2016, my now-19-year-old son Simcha participated in the Camp Koby Summer Experience. It’s a program for American teenagers that combines extensive travel in Israel with a two-week stay at Camp Koby – providing Israeli children who have lost close relatives to terror with a fun, supportive summer experience.
My son grew up quite a bit that summer, suddenly finding himself consoling kids who have faced the unimaginable. What do you say to a child who has lost a parent to terrorism? How does that child find the strength to go on? (If you are so inclined, you can watch Simcha speak about his experiences shortly after his trip.)
My son’s special experiences quickly came to mind when I saw the new video from Hanan Ben Ari and OneFamily. They teamed up to record a special video covering Hanan’s powerful song, “Aluf HaOlam” (World Champion). In it, Hanan sings with terror victims’ family members of their determination to keep going in the face of unbelievable pain and horror. Click here for the song lyrics in English and Hebrew.
From OneFamily’s web site:
OneFamily is the family of Israel’s victims of terror attacks – those who have been bereaved, those who have been maimed, and those suffering from post-trauma as a result of terrorist attacks since 2001….We are the premier national organization that rehabilitates, reintegrates and rebuilds the lives of Israel’s thousands of victims of terror attacks.
Every family has a story.
To hear Hanan sing with those who have lost close family members to terror is simply heartbreaking. Some of the participants include:
- Natan Meir, whose wife Dafna, 38, was a mother of four and foster mother of two young children. A teenage Palestinian attacker stabbed Dafna to death in January 2016 at the entrance of her home.
- Yisrael Asulin, whose sister Hodaya, 20, was wounded when a bomb exploded at a bus stop in Jerusalem in 2011. She remained in a coma for more than six years, and passed away in 2017.
- Chaim Lev Tov was critically injured during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
- Eliezer Rosenfeld, who lost his 26-year-old son Malachi in a shooting attack in 2015.
- Yael Shevach lost her husband Raizel, 35, in 2018. Terrorists gunned down this father of six in the West Bank.
- Amichai and Shira Ish Ran, sustained critical injuries and lost their unborn child as a result of a shooting in Ofra in 2018.
- Michal Solomon, a mother of five, lost her husband, father-in-law and sister-in-law in a Friday night attack in Halamish in 2017. Michal protected her children in an upstairs bedroom as the terrorist murdered her family members below.
The list goes on and on…and becomes more painful with each new family that appears in the video.
As we sit down to celebrate a new year with our families, let’s remember those who will spend the holiday with an empty seat at their table. Let’s recommit ourselves to do our part to embrace victims of terror in any way we can.
