Life After Terror

From the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000 to the Fall of 2023, over 1,600 people were killed in terrorist attacks on Israel. On Oct. 7, 2023 alone, over 1,200 were murdered by Hamas terrorists. Just last Saturday, 12 more terror victims in Israel were added to the list—a grim result of Hezbollah’s rocket attack on the Golan Heights on July 27. 

What do you do to carry on in life after losing loved ones to terror? How soon do you even start to ponder that? And even before that question gets answered, one has to wonder how many survivors and mourners are already suffering in solitude. 

For the organization OneFamily, that since 2001 has taken on the role of healing and paving a path for life after terror for the survivors, the past 10 months have challenged its resources and flexibility to keep up with a critical need for more healing resources. 

Founded by philanthropists Marc and Chantal Belzberg, OneFamily over the years has helped thousands of people. They estimate that at least 25,000 people in Israel have lost a parent, child, spouse, or sibling in the past year due to the Oct. 7 attacks and the aftermath. It’s a continuous collective shiva.

OneFamily is already hard at work providing relief for victims of last Saturday’s Hezbollah attack on a soccer field in the Golan Heights where 12 children and teens were murdered and at least 42 were injured.  Within 48 hours of the attack, Chantal updated The Journal about what OneFamily relief operations are being put into action.

“Staff are reaching out to all the families of the bereaved and the injured in the hospitals,” Chantal told The Journal. “Today [Monday] was the first day in the hospital, we met with families whose children are in very rough shape. We are starting with financial help for all the families, sending financial help to all their bank accounts. Gathering all the information now, Shiva home visits are starting [Tuesday].”

“OneFamily joins the entire nation in tears and anguish over the horrible murder of 12 children in Majdal Shams this week. Forty more were injured in the Hezbollah rocket strike. Many people do not know the amount of presence and support we offer to the Druze community who has consistently suffered losses throughout all of Israel’s ongoing battle with terror. We will be here to help these shattered families (and entire village) from this tragedy as we have been for the Druze community for our 23 years.”

—Chantal Belzberg, founder and CEO of OneFamily

The OneFamily story began on Aug. 9, 2001, two days prior to the Belzbergs’ oldest daughter Michal’s bat mitzvah. That Thursday, a suicide bomber walked into a Sbarro Pizza restaurant in Jerusalem carrying a guitar case packed with explosives. Sixteen people — mostly children — were murdered and over 150 were wounded. The Belzberg family decided to cancel the bat mitzvah party in lieu of taking healing action for their fellow Israelis. “She really wanted a big bat mitzvah, so it was really something to cancel. She wanted her friends’ parents invited.”

But the mindset in the Belzberg family switched from bat mitzvah mode to “if you can do something to help, it’s your duty to help.” 

“Nothing happens by accident — that those two dates, both the bat mitzvah and this horrible event — happened at the same time,” Marc told a group of about 200 supporters at a OneFamily event in Los Angeles on July 25. “That day, my wife and I looked at each other and said, ‘let’s just take this on as a family project. For how long? We don’t know. For how many? We don’t know, but let’s just say we’re going to take care of every victim of terror.’ We didn’t even know what that meant, what ‘taking care of the victims’ means, but that was a commitment we made to each other and we are keeping to that commitment.”

They have since very much figured out what “taking care of the victims” means. Within a week of the Sbarro bombing, the Belzbergs raised over $100,000 for the families of the victims. It set them on a trajectory that they said makes them “Israel’s largest organization providing a comprehensive support network for victims of terrorist attacks and their families.” OneFamily has supported thousands of victims through financial, emotional, psychological, and legal aid. Their mission is to provide “therapeutic support to terror victims from the time of their initial trauma, as they progress, and through the long term whenever needed.” As the 23rd anniversary of the Sbarro bombing approaches and the mission’s scope has grown since Oct. 7, OneFamily remains driven by the founders’ outlook. 

The organization provided statistics on just how many people they help on any given year — but with a caveat: These statistics are based on pre-Oct. 7 figures. Through 2023, OneFamily had grown to 65 employees and 550 volunteers and spent $80 million on its programs, serving over 18,000 people since its founding. Each year, OneFamily helps 3,200 families receive direct financial aid, 529 families receive food vouchers for Passover, 91 wounded IDF soldiers get vouchers of $190 and awards 12 university scholarships. About 535 war widows, terror victims, and orphans participate in various healing and therapeutic retreats across Israel. One hundred and fifty bereaved and wounded singles, ages 22-32 each year travel together overseas for healing retreats. Over 2,500 families receive Purim celebration packages. For children ages 8-18 who have lost parents or siblings, or who are themselves survivors, there is a Youth Division. Nearly 800 children attend OneFamily’s Hanukkah, Passover, and Summer camps. In southern Israel, 285 children receive new school backpacks and gift cards to purchase school supplies.

The Belzbergs said that the number of family members of terror victims has quadrupled. Prior to Oct. 7, there were always 10-20 families that were actively being assisted at any given time. It’s a lot but that was the normal pace for OneFamily staff. They hope to reach 4,000 new families affected by the Oct. 7 attacks this year. That assistance will require a nearly three-fold increase in their annual budget, from $3.5 million to $10 million. 

The OneFamily founders are determined to make that happen. The values of giving back and lending a helping hand to those who need it most were ingrained in Marc and Chantal when they were very young.

“Both my parents were very involved in charity,” Marc told The Journal. “Mom was very involved in speaking at different places for different charities and committees, on boards of directors. We definitely learned the idea of the importance of helping others from the house.”

“My family also was very charitable,” Chantal said. “It was always about what you could do for others. I’ve always felt that thank God. God was very generous with me and I felt like I can’t just spend my life just going shopping and going to the gym. We moved to Israel 32 years ago and you feel you have to be part of what’s going on. And with all the gifts Hashem gave, you have to share.” 

Marc emphasized that “OneFamily provides equal treatment to every single victim of terror acts in Israel — no matter what the race or religion, whether they’re Arabs, whether they’re foreign workers, whether they’re Christians, whatever it happens to be, OneFamily is nondenominational.” 

OneFamily’s programming draws on elements from several other prominent relief charities in the U.S: It’s partly a victims compensation fund (like the 9/11 Victims Compensation fund), it provides lodging assistance for families needing a home near a hospital where a loved one is getting long-term treatment (similar to the Ronald McDonald House), they do trauma healing retreats (like so many rehabilitation organizations). And some of OneFamily’s programming is reminiscent of the Make-A Wish Foundation — but for Israelis of all ages, not just children.  

“OneFamily’s job is to fill in the gaps between what the government does versus the different needs every single family requires,” Marc said. “Whether financial needs, emotional needs, psychological needs, medical needs, whatever it happens to be. OneFamily provides a new social structure for each age group and each particular tragedy that happened to them. With people exactly like themselves. They can cry when they want. They can laugh when they want, and the other person knows exactly what they’re feeling and understands that you have to be happy sometimes that you’re allowed to be happy.” 

It’s a daunting task to take on the mission of healing, but the OneFamily team is well-versed in crafting personalized care and addressing the needs of their members of all ages. 

“These kids feel like life has treated them poorly, they’ve been hurt,” Marc said. “They’re ‘less than’ their friends are. They’re missing something their friends have. What they need is to fill in that hole. So to heal these kids, take them out of the country like we do, and I know from the kids who come back from Cyprus, they rave about it. A whole new breeze, a whole new atmosphere and begin to heal. It’s all about giving to people in every possible way, and it all costs money because the organization unfortunately, is taking care of 12,000 people. And the numbers I wish were reducing, but they’re not. And I have a lot of fears about the future.” 

And as these kids become adults, the OneFamily care does not stop, as long as they need it. 

“We treat orphans as orphans no matter what their age,” Naomi Nussbaum, the U.S. executive director of OneFamily Fund, told The Journal. “If you have lost both parents, you’re an orphan. The idea that there’s a ‘cutoff at age 18’ is a government construct that doesn’t exist in psychology.”

Nussbaum describes the OneFamily’s peer-support programs as “magic.” People feel deeply seen and understood, which is essential for healing, Nussbaum said. “There are still victims from the Sbarro bombing that have active relationships with the organization. One survivor of the bombing [Israeli American Chana Nachenberg] was in a coma for 22 years before passing away in 2023.” 

What sets OneFamily apart from the pack is that they look to aid the people in need of support who may not be as obvious. “Oct. 7 has changed everything, now it’s everybody at once,” Chantal said. “We discovered that the grandparents [of terror victims] feel very left out and need their own support groups. Nobody looks at the parents of the widow and thinks that they need support groups right now.”

“We discovered that the grandparents [of terror victims] feel very left out and need their own support groups. Nobody looks at the parents of the widow and thinks that they need support groups right now.” – Chantal Belzberg

The specificity of the healing groups can sometimes be winnowed down to a support group for young people who lost a twin sibling. There are so many twinless twins due to terror attacks on Israel that OneFamily just flew a plane of 17 of them from Israel to Cyprus. They’ll be there for four days doing healing activities with two licensed trauma therapists.

“It’s the idea of just even getting away to get a break,” Marc said. “I can tell you that when I went to Cyprus, we took 700 people — 50 at a time — to Cyprus for a weekend in a hotel, along with three or four psychologists. It can be one therapy session a day, and the other part of the day, they can have fun.”

The first event OneFamily ever did was rent a hotel on Dead Sea for a retreat during the first year of the Second Intifada. Over 1,000 people came. Marc said that “If one person got killed, the whole family, mother, father, brother, sister, everybody came. One moment from that first retreat they did that sticks out for Marc to this day is approaching one of the guests and innocently asking, “How are you feeling?” Their response? “We want to die, we want to be with our dead son.” The couple didn’t want to leave their hotel room. They closed their blinds and sat in their beds. But a OneFamily staffer encouraged them to come out and participate in the programming. 

“And that was when I first realized that a major issue is loneliness,” Marc said. “The only way to heal is when you get back into society. And the only way to get back into society is with people who you share something with—that you feel a common bond with. And that’s what OneFamily is all about.” This philosophy has shaped OneFamily’s approach, organizing retreats and therapeutic trips that allow victims to connect and heal together and form a larger family of support among those who need it most.

“The only way to heal is when you get back into society. And the only way to get back into society is with people who you share something with — that you feel a common bond with. And that’s what OneFamily is all about.” – Marc Belzberg

Mindee Levinger, a caseworker at OneFamily who has worked there since the beginning, explained her raison d’être. “One morning a person gets up, they have a beautiful family—father, mother, brothers, sisters,” Levinger said. “They leave the house, and in one minute, a bomb happens, a terror attack happens. In one minute, their lives are shattered. What we try to do is to collect all the little pieces that are shattered, to give them the right tools to continue. We show these families that we’ll never leave them and that we’re their family and will always be with them.”

The full impact of OneFamily is best understood through the stories of its beneficiaries. To spread awareness of their work, and in an effort to fundraise for more resources post-Oct. 7, OneFamily brought three members to Los Angeles to share their stories for the very first time in the U.S.

Odelia Horgan, the eldest of six children, lost her mother Esther who was murdered by a terrorist while going for a run in December 2020. “It was not just my mother; she was my best friend,” Horgan said. “How do you continue? Immediately after the attack, the OneFamily organization reached out to us offering help and comfort. My younger sister Abigail immediately connected with them, meeting a group of friends her age each with a similar trauma, each with their own story that they shared together. Every meeting became a light for Abigail, a reason to get out of bed, which had become a real struggle for her. After the attack, I knew that my trauma needed to be treated as early as possible, otherwise the scars would become permanent and then the pain would remain. So right after that attack I went to a range of treatments, therapies, psychology, art therapy. I found exercising on the beach, in the sea, to be very healthy. I worked a lot on my soul but something still was missing. I felt very disconnected from people. I couldn’t find topics of conversation to engage in and started feeling somewhat strange. Then sometime later it was my turn.”

Horgan would get a phone call from OneFamily, with an invitation to go on a healing trip to Ethiopia for eight days with peers who endured a similar tragedy. She described it as a “journey into the soul,” with workshops, talks, lectures, and listening to “50 separate horror stories,” but also meeting 50 new families — members of OneFamily. “I met others who had gone through what I had gone through. It helped me realize that I’m okay and it’s going to be okay because we are together.”

“I met others who had gone through what I had gone through. It helped me realize that I’m okay and it’s going to be okay because we are together.” – Odelia Horgan

Another OneFamily member who spoke in Los Angeles is 25-year-old Hadar Zak. He is from Kibbutz Kissufim, where on Oct. 7, 18 people were murdered by Hamas and four were taken hostage in Gaza. That day, Zak was not at home, and neither was his sister Tomer. 

“It wasn’t until almost 1:00 p.m. that I finally reached them,” Zak said. “When my father answered me, he said there were a lot of gunshots outside and he assured me that they were all in the safe room. After I burst into tears, he passed the phone to my mother who always knew how to talk to me and she calmed tears. I asked, ‘Where is my younger brother—the light of my life.’ And she assured me they’re all safe in the safe room. That was our final conversation. We found out later that they died not long after this phone call. They were shot. The house was ultimately destroyed by the flames and the safe room was completely filled with smoke, giving them absolutely no chance of survival.” His father Itay was found guarding the door to the safe room, next to their loyal dog Saka. His mother Etti was found hugging his brother, 14-year-old Sagi. Hadar and his sister Tomer’s family wouldn’t be identified and buried for two weeks. 

A OneFamily staff member and psychotherapist, Ella Danon, reached out to Zak. Danon would check on Zak and do therapy sessions with him. She would also invite him to join five other adults on a ski trip to Andorra for a healing trip. Everyone in the group became orphans following the murder of their parents on Oct. 7. OneFamily helped Hadar and Tomer transition to a temporary home.

“The support of OneFamily is helping me through this tragedy and finding a way to live and enjoy life from the family that I now have,” Hadar said. Upon coming to Los Angeles for the first time to tell his story, he told The Journal that he “couldn’t even imagine how amazing, welcoming and warm the community is,” adding, “I couldn’t imagine how much I would feel at home.”

“The support of OneFamily is helping me through this tragedy and finding a way to live and enjoy life from the family that I now have.” – Hadar Zak

One of the longest-tenured members of OneFamily is Eden Mekonen, a 26-year-old art student. In 2002, Mekonen lost her father, an IDF reservist,  who died while fighting a terrorist in the Jordan Valley. “My mother was only my age when my father was killed and my sister and I were little girls,” Mekonen said. “I was four years old and my sister was only three. I have almost no memories of my father in that time. We were a small and happy family. I think because I was so young when it happened, and the pain and the shock was so great, I don’t remember almost anything from that time period after my father was killed.”

For as long as Mekonen can remember, OneFamily has been an integral part of her life. “I remember the first time we went to summer camp with OneFamily,” Mekonen said. “I was 10 and my sister Noy was nine. The whole group was kayaking in the north and we joined them after they had finished. Even from that very first moment, we felt an immediate connection with the children, they all went to us with a great genuine love and we felt a sense of belonging that we haven’t experienced before. At the camp, and at every meeting, we have an activity called ‘therapeutic sharing circle’ where we talk about grief from different angles.”

Mekonen reflected on the importance of recognizing how loneliness can be so corrosive when needing to heal from the trauma of losing loved ones to terror. 

“The feeling that you are not alone is truly confronting and we support and the framework that we still gently appreciate are not something that we take for granted,” Mekonen said. “Every year, staff and friends from the organization come to the memorial for our father and they always reach out to congratulate us on our birthdays and are truly there in the big, small, happy and painful moments of our lives.”

One of the twins participating in the healing retreat with other twinless twins this week, 36 year-old Itamar Vizel, shared a written reflection on the experience. 

“Except for one older twin, we are all fresh from the current war,” Vizel wrote in a statement in Hebrew to The Journal. His twin brother, Master Sgt. (res.) Elkana Vizel, a company commander in the 8208th Battalion of the 261st Brigade and a father of four, was killed when a building in Gaza collapsed on January 22, killing 20 other IDF soldiers. “Those who lost on the seventh of October, those in the months after and even those from the last two months. Almost all of us don’t know each other but within a second conversations start as if we have gone through whole lifetimes together. A stranger will not understand.”

In due time, there will be even more stories of healing by the unwittingly newest members of OneFamily who lost a loved one on a soccer pitch in the Golan Heights this week. 

OneFamily’s extensive support programs cater to a wide range of needs, ensuring that victims receive the care they need at every stage of their recovery. They pointed out that the costs are high — financing six sessions of family therapy throughout the year for 40 families costs about $195,000. The five-day therapeutic retreats outside of Israel for 55 participants costs about $690,000 for six retreats each year. For any organization in need of creating awareness for both opportunities for healing and to rally financial support, a celebrity endorser is always a plus. OneFamily’s mission and results caught the attention of Lior Raz, the creator and star of the hit show “Fauda.” 

At the OneFamily event in Los Angeles, Raz shared a personal story that illustrates the kinds of people that OneFamily seeks to help: those suffering in solitude. His own story of loss due to terrorism took place in 1990, when he was 19. 

“I had a girlfriend since I was 16, she was the first woman who really loved me,” Raz said. “One day, she was in the Army, she went out from her house in Baka in Jerusalem, and a terrorist called Abu Sirhan stabbed her to death.” Raz’ girlfriend of three years, Iris Azulay was murdered by the Palestinian-Arab armed with a 15-inch knife. Two others were murdered in the attack. At the time, Raz could have used the support of an organization such as OneFamily. 

“It was the hardest thing ever,” Raz said. “I didn’t talk about Iris for 20 years until we started to write ‘Fauda.’ When we started to write ‘Fauda,’ Avi [Issacharoff] asked me — because he knew her, said ‘let’s write something about Iris.’ In the first season, if you remember, there is a woman who’s dying in an explosion in a bar. She’s the girlfriend of someone from the team’s boss. The same dialogue, it was our dialogue. And just imagine, to audition an actress that is acting as your dead girlfriend. So it was very, very hard. This is why when I’m saying that ‘Fauda’ was written in blood. This morning, we were talking about PTSD and how I got healed from my PTSD through creation, through writing. Because when I started to write ‘Fauda,’ I had a blackout. I didn’t remember anything about anyone, any operation that I did in the Army, I just blacked out. When I was sitting with Avi, we started to remember it. My team members came and started to talk about it. Because of the writing and because of the creation that we started, I got healed from my PTSD. I think what you do [at OneFamily] is amazing and helping so many Israelis now.”

The OneFamily leadership hopes that their work can serve as a model for others with the ability to help the people in Israel who have been hurt the most. “Together, we can make a profound difference in the lives of those who need it most,” Marc said in his pitch to the community to support the OneFamily mission. 

The event in Los Angeles last week was attended by several people who told The Journal that they had not heard much about OneFamily prior to attending. One of those attendees is entrepreneur Nessie Alfandari, founder of Sababa Social Club, who now will never forget about the mission of OneFamily.

“I have to say, this event, like many others, has been incredibly special,” Alfandari told the Journal. “But this one, in particular, gave me a real reality check on the devastation and severe situation of Israeli lives, especially post-Oct. 7. The trauma and reality of family loss, the number of orphans, and the loss of siblings or parents due to terrorism are heart-wrenching. I mean, I can’t wrap my head around it. I just try to imagine if this happened in the United States. Imagine if Uvalde and Sandy Hook were repeated constant occurrences, or if the Vegas shooting massacre or any other shooting happened regularly. This happens in Israel so often that we are losing track of the number of victims following these horrific attacks. The victims who suffer, the children without parents, the parents without children, and children without siblings-many lost generations.”