The unbreakable spirit of Miriam Peretz

Peretz and Libstein had forged a powerful bond through their shared dedication to WeKibbutz, an organization Libstein founded to strengthen ties between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora. The foundation offers an array of initiatives such as the Hallelujah Project, an international summer camp program in Israel emphasizing leadership development. Another program, Netaim, aims to nurture connections with small Jewish communities dispersed worldwide, while Hamsa is a comprehensive five-year program that supports lone soldiers from abroad and integrates them into Israeli society.

On the morning of October 7, Peretz’s son Elyasaf, dressed in white and draped with his prayer shawl, returned from synagogue services and, much to her surprise, began changing into his army uniform. There was trouble in the South, he explained.

Peretz’s oldest son, Uriel, was killed in Lebanon in 1998 at the age of 22. Twelve years later, her younger son, Eliraz, the father of four young children, was killed in Gaza at the age of 32.

“I told Elyasaf, ‘No, you are not going. I can’t take it anymore.’”

After her loss, Miriam Peretz became a household name in Israel due to the inspiring way she coped with her tragedy and dedication to educating young people and soldiers. She shared her story of hope and resilience in Israel and abroad, encouraging others to find meaning and purpose in adversity. She received numerous awards and honors, including the Israel Prize, the country’s highest civilian honor. In 2021, she ran for Israel’s presidency but lost to Isaac Herzog, the former chairman of the Jewish Agency and son of Israel’s sixth president, Chaim Herzog.

Before leaving to join his unit, Peretz’s son informed her he had heard that someone important had been killed in the Hamas attack.

Ofir Libstein was the first casualty reported on Israeli television news that morning. The devastating blow hit Peretz like another son being ripped away.

“I felt like they had come to me for the third time,” she said during an interview in her home. “I asked myself, ‘How will we continue without him?’ And I said to myself, ‘We will continue. There is no Ofir. There will never be another Ofir; we must continue in Ofir’s spirit.’ He did so much good in the world. If only those who murdered him had stopped to ask him who he was, he would have answered, ‘I am building a factory near the border so that Gazans will have a place to work.’ But they didn’t ask. They killed him for one reason: because he is a Jew.”

Two years earlier, Peretz and Libstein first crossed paths in Austin, Texas, when they had gone to promote WeKibbutz programs at an Israeli American Council (IAC) conference.

“I found a person who loves this country, loves this people, and feels a total commitment to every Jew in the world. I felt connected to him and the WeKibbutz vision. They are like oxygen to me. When I heard he was killed, I felt devastation. I felt God had taken something precious. But only in body, not in spirit. Today, we ensure that Ofir’s spirit lives on. Our enemy wants to break our spirit. We will not let them.”

Although Ofir’s widow had met Peretz only two months earlier, at her husband’s 50th birthday celebration, she entrusted Peretz to deliver a eulogy at the funeral, attended by 12,000 people, including President Isaac Herzog and former IDF chief Benny Gantz.

“Only someone who has walked this path can truly understand its weight,” she said.

A few months after the tragedy, Vered Libstein and Peretz embarked on the first of many trips abroad together to continue Ofir’s vision and promote WeKibbutz programs of forging ties with Jewish communities.

“Ofir always said we don’t have the right to exist here if we don’t connect with the Diaspora,” Vered said. “They don’t have to make aliyah or donate money; they can live where they are but feel that connection to Israel, to Zionism and modern Judaism. And I laughed at him a bit. What does a Jew living in Norway have to do with our right to live in Israel? After October 7, I understood what he meant.”

Vered Libstein, Peretz, WeKibbutz’s CEO Shiri Madar, and others traveled to the US, starting in Denver for a JNF meeting, then to Las Vegas, where they met with philanthropist Miriam Adelson, and then to San Diego and Los Angeles.

“When Miriam [Peretz] comes to Jewish communities, she changes people’s viewpoints,” said Madar. “I have met people on flights to Israel who told me they are returning to Israel because Miriam Peretz changed their life. It seems like there is not a person in the Jewish world who doesn’t know her. Everywhere we go, she’s a celebrity. She has energy without end.”

In Denver, they saw their first pro-Palestinian demonstration.

“I noticed something different this time,” Madar said. “The Jewish and Israelis communities were united as one.”

Ofir felt a profound connection in San Diego, not surprising given that the Sha’ar Hanegev municipality has been San Diego’s twin city for 25 years.

The connection grew stronger during Ofir’s tenure as head of the council. Just four months before the catastrophe, a few hundred people from San Diego spent an entire day in Sha’ar Hanegev with their host, Ofir.

“My husband wanted every Jew who visits from San Diego to feel that Sha’ar Hanegev is their second home,” Vered said. “When I got there, I felt the love for us. I felt like they were part of our extended family. When I walked into the Jewish community center, I saw large photos that were taken right in my living room. I cried several times because it was so moving.”

It was Hanukkah. Madar had prepared hundreds of boxes of Hanukkah candles with Ofir’s photo and his story. She called it “For Ofir’s Light.” In San Diego, the community had prepared a dozen hanukkiot with the name of each of the devastated kibbutzim.

“We lit candles with Miriam, reciting her unique blessings and spreading her unique light,” said Vered. “Many people who had been in our home approached me and shared their memories. One couple remembered my older son, Aviv, who was in Golani, and asked about him. Another remembered my youngest son, Uri, who played basketball in a new sports center they helped build.”

One of the visionary projects under the WeKibbutz umbrella conceived by Ofir is Netaim (saplings). But the kind of seeds Ofir had in mind are seeds of connections to small, forgotten Jewish communities worldwide. They even visited a Jewish community of 10 people in Bitola, North Macedonia, where 98% of the Jews had been exterminated in the Holocaust.

“We want to tell them that we are your siblings; you are not alone,” said Madar, encapsulating the ethos driving WeKibbutz’s outreach efforts.

This year, WeKibbutz sent thousands of anemone flower bulbs to European Jewish communities for schoolchildren to plant on Tu Bishvat in Ofir’s memory. The red anemones, resembling poppy flowers, bloom each spring in Sha’ar Hanegev, a spectacle that forms the centerpiece of the annual Darom Adom (Red South) festival, cofounded by Vered and Ofir in 2007. Over the years, it has grown into one of the country’s most cherished nature events, drawing thousands of visitors. This spring, just as they do every year, the flowers bloomed in a gorgeous riot of red. But no one came to see them. The festival was canceled.

Passover is not an easy holiday for Peretz. Just two nights before the Seder in 2010, her son Eliraz fell in battle, leaving behind four small children.

“I remember us sitting at the Seder table after the funeral. The oldest was six, and the baby was just two months old. We sang Ma Nishtana? through our tears,” she said. “We sang with great pain. We continued to read the Haggadah. We chose life.”

This year, Peretz was asked to write a message for a special Haggadah published by the Bring Them Home Now organization. Her message was potent. How does this night differ from other nights when many loved ones were missing from the Seder table? Her answer: “We will tell the children that even on this night, despite the pain, we will continue to choose life because that is the story of our people. We always rise from catastrophe.”

Peretz noted that when the Israelites fled Egypt, Moses’ sister, Miriam, took a tambourine for the journey.

“In all that commotion, the most important thing to take was a tambourine?” Peretz asked.

“She foresaw that there would come a moment when the Jews would celebrate, when they would sing! We must never lose sight of this perspective.”

For Vered, facing a Seder without her husband, who had conducted it all those years, was too much to bear. She considered taking her family abroad.

“But the children and I chose not to run away from the holidays but to celebrate them the way we loved, like we did when Ofir and my son Nitzan were alive,” she said.

Peretz’s raspy voice and passionate musicality in her speech are as eloquent as her words. The Jerusalem Report interview took place in her home on the morning of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was especially painful for many this year. Her home contains a wall of books and photographs of her children and 19 grandchildren. She hugged me when I entered, even though we had never met.

“Today we are in Yom Hashoah,” she said. “Some who lost their loved ones may ask today: What is there to live for? To live is not to get up in the morning, drink coffee, and call that a life. Life is the meaning you give it. And I chose to live, to continue the spirit of my sons. I want to continue loving fellow human beings and my country and do acts of kindness. Thank God the family has grown, and I have 19 grandchildren. Eliraz’s son, who was six when his father was killed, was drafted two weeks ago to the Golani Brigade.”

“From the sound of the siren on Holocaust Remembrance Day, I felt like I was withering inside, with less ability to cope, less sleep; and then I felt worse when Yom Hazikaron began,” said Vered. “It was tough for me.” She spent the day at Kibbutz Shefayim, where many Kfar Aza evacuees are sheltering. During the ceremony, she lit a torch in Ofir’s memory and for all those murdered that day.

Every Friday evening before October 7, as the sun dipped below the horizon, Ofir Libstein would recite the Kiddush with his family gathered around the table. After his murder, his sons, unable to bear the thought of taking their father’s place, refused to do it, and someone else, a relative or a guest, would step in.

“And then one day, Uri, my 10-year-old, asked to be allowed to say the Kiddush,” Vered recalled.

As Uri’s small voice filled the room, Vered felt a wave of emotion wash over her, a sense of peace. “I felt like Ofir was home. Everyone felt it,” she said. “I told him that I wouldn’t ask him to do anything else in the house besides saying Kiddush every Friday night.”

Recently, some friends attended Friday night dinner at the Libstein home and saw Uri tearing pieces from the challah to distribute to everyone around the table as he had seen his father do countless times. But first he placed four pieces beside him on the table. When one of the guests reached out to take a piece, he gently stopped her. He had put the pieces aside for his father, brother, grandmother, and cousin – a silent tribute to those who could never again join them at the table. ■