In the Aftermath of Oct. 7, Traumatized Israelis Are Coming to America

On Thursday, November 9, a group of five teenagers from Kibbutz Magen and Ein Habsur in the Gaza Envelope flew from Ben Gurion airport to Los Angeles. It was there, by the moving walkway in Tel Aviv, that they saw the display of pictures of the kidnapped Israelis by Hamas, and among them a picture of their 17-year-old friend, Noam Or. One of them discovered there that his former elementary teacher was kidnapped as well. The five teens (two of them siblings) have already lost a few friends who were murdered by Hamas, saw the rockets fall and were able to escape unharmed. 

“Just last week, they learned about another friend who was declared dead after being identified by his teeth. His body was completely burnt,” said their host, Liat Moshe. “It’s unimaginable what they are going through, they are only children and some of their friends were kidnapped and murdered. Their parents decided to put them on a plane and send them here to get away from it all.”

Moshe is one member of a group of Israeli women in Los Angeles who decided to help families who had left Israel following the war. They arrived from all over: The Gaza envelope and the north, center and south in Israel. The constant rocket attacks and lack of bomb shelters in their homes brought them here. 

Dikla Egozi, one of the women who volunteered to help, said that she kept seeing messages on Facebook from people who were looking for accommodation. 

“I realized that there are dozens of families who arrive here and have nowhere to go. I called my mom who lives in a kibbutz in Israel and told her she has to come here and help me. She used to be a kindergarten teacher and once the war started, she went back to being a teacher for all the kids from the Gaza Envelope who had moved to her Kibbutz. My mom agreed and is here with us now. She told me that her flight was full with families and children who had left Israel following the war.”

The list of families seeking help from the Israeli community in L.A. grew rapidly. Many of these families have young children and are seeking a sense of normalcy without having to take refuge in shelters every day. Having left everything behind, they face uncertainties about the duration of their stay and how they’ll manage financially.

The Israeli women leading the assistance efforts also acknowledge the challenges they face and are reaching out for support. Liat Franco, a mother of four with a doctorate in law, expressed her commitment to helping approximately 100 Israeli families. 

“Those families don’t have enough resources to rent a car, an apartment and pay for an extended stay. Therefore, we are asking families who have a guest house, or a room to help them out. They also need rental cars, but those are extremely expensive. The insurance alone costs $1,700, and they can’t afford it.”

The local Israeli women also helped the families with enrolling their children at Jewish schools such as Ilan Ramon in Agoura Hills, which has offered a generous discount. They arrange for children activities, toys and clothing and twice a week gather them all for a communal breakfast at one of the volunteer homes.

“I put everything now at hold, I don’t work on my research or writing; this can wait, but these families need help right now,” Franco said. “When I opened the group we were four women and I didn’t know it’s going to be so consuming, but I can’t ignore them. These people stopped working and still need to pay their rent in Israel and still need to buy food. They desperately need help.”

Alongside two other volunteers, Liat Lehavi and Meital Bosani, these women organize communal breakfasts twice a week. Tamar, a resident of Northridge, graciously opened her home on Thursday for one of these breakfast gatherings. Spread across the spacious kitchen counter is a lavish array of burekas, shakshuka, bagels and cheese, vegetable salad and egg salad, all in abundance.

In the backyard, numerous kids are immersed in various activities, providing a lively atmosphere. Meanwhile, their parents take a brief respite to unwind and relax, yet the weight of uncertainty about the future lingers heavily on them.

Ofir Bar and Or Tzoref, both 17, flew to Los Angeles by themselves, uncertain about the duration of their stay and the possibility of returning home. Their families had been evacuated due to the war. Tzoref’s family was sent to a kibbutz in the Dead Sea. His father and two brothers are getting ready to join IDF forces and his mother is working in a Health Clinic. The two friends were spending Friday night at a friends’ house in a nearby village, Yated and went to sleep only at 5 a.m. 

“We were eight friends there,” recalled Bar. “An hour-and-a-half after we went to sleep we awoke to the sound of rockets. Still, we weren’t too afraid, we are used to those. We went outside to watch and take pictures, but then we saw they are coming every couple of seconds and understood it’s serious. We hurried back to one of the neighbor’s house. There was an electricity shortage so we needed to be careful and save our phone batteries. We needed to call our family and make sure they are fine.” 

Each time they needed to charge their phone batteries, they hurried outside to one of the cars, started it and charged it quickly, knowing that at any moment Hamas members can storm in or a rocket will fall of them. Those kept coming frequently.

“At that time we didn’t completely grasped how bad the situation is,” he said.

The realization of how lucky they were came hours later when they saw a picture of one of one of their good friends who was kidnapped by Hamas. 

“We saw his picture along with all the Thai workers,” he said. “They were full of blood and our friend was sitting there with the gun pointed at him. This photo is etched in our minds. Later we discovered we had lost a few friends. Ofir and I went to five funerals of friends and parents of friends. We know many people who were affected by what happened and either were murdered, kidnapped or injured. We all go to the same area school so we know many students from Be’eri.”

Tzoref’s kibbutz fought a large group of Hamas terrorists who broke in their gated community. 

“Because the Bedouins in the area kept breaking into our village and stole cars and trucks, we had a standby squad who were always patrolling the neighborhood,” he said. “When the rockets kept falling, my uncle went to see what’s going on and noticed a few jeeps driving toward us. He hurried to alert the rest of the people and they fought against Hamas. I think there were maybe 50 of them, they kept coming more and more, but my uncles, father and others in Magen kept shooting at them.”

The local heroes were able to hold Hamas back, but one of the residents, Avi Fleischer, was killed and the security coordinator was injured. A four of the dozen people fighting there are members of Tzoref’s family. 

“It’s still hard to grasp what had happened here,” Bar said. “Noam Mor, the kid who was kidnapped from Be’eri, is such a sweet child and a very good friend of ours. We keep thinking of him all the time. What do they do to him? How does he manage there?”

When asked if they would want to go back home after the war, they are conflicted. 

Tzoref said, “I would go back but it won’t be the same. Most of our friends are from Be’eri and it will take at least a year or two to rebuild, so they are not going to be back and even the landscape had changed.”

Bar added: “The problem is that half of the people I used to hang out with won’t want to go back or don’t have a home to go back to, so it will never be the same again.  We were very connected to Be’eri we spent all our time with our friends there and now there is nothing left there.”

Three days prior to the terror attack, the friends went to a Bruno Mars concert. They were looking forward to their school trip to Auschwitz Poland that was planned for October 19, and to a big music festival in the area where the Nova music festival took place.

“One minute we were all happy and celebrating my 17th birthday and making plans for the future. And then it all ended.”
– Or Tzoref

“It’s hard to believe how our lives had changed so drastically,” said Tzoref. “One minute we were all happy and celebrating my 17th birthday and making plans for the future. And then it all ended.”