NOVEMBER 2 • 2023 | 59
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Serving each family.
Consoling each heart.
For 105 years.
T
hree weeks after
Kibbutz Be’eri was
massacred, its
surviving members still
gather for their community’s
traditional evening meeting.
The kibbutz, ransacked
and empty, is now a closed
military zone. To those
familiar with the litany of
atrocities committed on
Oct. 7, its name has become
synonymous with some of
the day’s worst horrors. Many
of Be’eri’s residents refer
to that day as a “Shoah” or
Holocaust.
Now, the nightly meetings
instead take place at the
David Dead Sea Resort,
where most of Be’eri’s
members are staying as Israel
fights a war against Hamas,
the terror group that invaded
Be’eri and the rest of the Gaza
border area, killing 1,400,
wounding thousands and
taking more than 200 people
captive.
Instead of discussing
the usual business of the
community of about 1,100,
Be’eri’s residents spend the
meetings updating the list of
kibbutz members who have
been moved from “missing”
or “kidnapped” to “dead.”
A conference room in the
hotel is divided by black
curtains into several separate
shivah areas for families.
More are being held outside
on the hotel lawn.
Nineteen days after the
massacre, the search and
identification process for
Refugees from
Kibbutz Be’eri
Count their Dead
and Grieve
ELIYAHU FREEDMAN JTA.ORG
Family and friends attend the Oct. 25 funeral of three members of the
Sharabi family, Lian, Noya and Yahel, who were murdered by Hamas
terrorists in Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7, 2023.
CHAIM GOLDBERG/FLASH90/VIA JTA