“This is the first time in my life that I can actually say chag sameach,” Nova survivor Uri Hanan, along with his support dog Michelle, shared with guest Sivan Rahav Meir and hundreds of participants at Jerusalem’s Eitz HaZayit hotel.
“I didn’t really know what chag was or meant [before], and until ALL of us came home, I could not be sameach (happy).”
A Simchat Torah gathering of Nova survivors
Uri is one of hundreds of Nova festival survivors who gathered – now for a second year in a row – to spend the challenging Simchat Torah holiday with each other and the organization Kesher Yehudi. When they arranged a Simchat Torah in Jerusalem specifically for Nova survivors and their families many weeks ago, there was no way of knowing it would be a celebration of their collective work and prayers coming to fruition – the return of all living hostages.
In the months following Oct. 7, Kesher Yehudi invited Nova survivors to experience one full Shabbat in the merit of bringing the hostages home. With complete uncertainty about how this experiment would unfold and the need to build hard-won trust among everyone attending, the result was a resounding request for more Shabbatons, more events, and eventually pleas to create a Simchat Torah experience.
“We could not return to Nova,” one participant explained, “but we needed a way to commemorate and spend the day together, to be grateful to God that we are alive while begging for the return of our friends.”
Shira Cohen told survivors and families about her harrowing and complicated escape from the festival on Simchat Torah afternoon, Oct. 7, 2023. “My brother, my closest friend and soul-twin, died when a drunk driver ran into his motorcycle just before Rosh Hashanah. I told God that my parents simply cannot bury two of their children in one month, I have to survive, it cannot be.”
A Torah scroll had been commissioned and written in memory of Shira’s brother, Aryeh Cohen, by Kesher Yehudi – donated by Shmuel and Leah Rieder in the merit of Shira’s and a group of survivors’ (dubbed the Shabbat Heroes) commitment to observe Shabbat.
After an intense, powerful holiday with guests Rabbi Michael Lasry, Yonatan Razel and Rahav Meir, all of whom have gotten to know the survivors over the course of the past two years, hundreds traveled on Tuesday night to the Great Synagogue for “Hakafot Shniyot” and consecration of the new Torah scroll that was completed on the spot. Taking part in this holy endeavor: former Sephardic chief Rabbi Shlomo Moshe Amar and current Sephardic Chief Rabbi David Yosef.
As the caravan moved through Jerusalem to bring the new Torah to the Great Synagogue, visitors and residents emerging from the Simchat Torah holiday stopped on every street, cheering and dancing.
Michal Ochana, a regular participant over the course of the last two years who is among the group that decided to start observing Shabbat, told the thousands of people gathered at the Great Synagogue that “today we dedicate a new Torah in the memory of all of our loved ones we have lost, after two incredible days of celebrating life and the return home of our hostages.”
“There was so much discord and pain in Israel before Oct. 7,” said Kesher Yehudi’s Tzili Schneider. “God needed us to show Him that we love each other again, and this incredible group of heroes impacted the heavens.”
“It was an incredibly humbling and uplifting experience that is hard to express in words, affirmed participant Raquel Spring, who has attended many of the Shabbatons and gatherings. “They have been through so very much and the rest of us are only starting to understand. They have come so far in the past two years, processing their trauma and trying to heal while mourning their friends,”
“Every minute of the holiday was a combination of tears and elation… followed by a celebration of Torah, Israel, and Jewish unity in the Great Synagogue and spilling out onto the streets.”
“I feel like the whole country needs to heal now, and the celebration of a new Torah, of life, and of the way forward with Jews of every stripe and background was the most healing experience one could imagine.”