7.10 – Telfed’s Commemorative Ceremony

By Larry Butchins

A year. An entire year – 365 painful days since that dreadful morning; a full 12 months since our lives were up-ended and forever changed. A year in which those of us who are so inclined have prayed, while others have hoped, have begged, have protested in one way or another, pleading for the release of our hostages, men and women – young and old, children, young male and female soldiers, teenagers, foreigners, Jews and Arabs and Christians. There are still more than 100 in captivity. More than 100, dead or alive; among them a year-old little boy and his five-year-old brother. What inhumanity is this?

As the horror of October 7 invaded Israel’s consciousness, so we all experienced a communal trauma – and we’re now experiencing collective PTSD. While life seems to go on, coffee shops and restaurants are full, sport and entertainment continue, there is an underlying sadness, a palpable melancholy, a shared grief and continual shock that this could have happened, in our time, in our land.

Israel is a small country – everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who has been affected. As a family, we can count a dozen people we know personally, whose own families were directly affected by the events of October 7 and its aftermath.

This year of sadness, despair, and trauma, of incredible resilience, unity, and bravery of our young soldiers, was observed in a beautifully dignified ceremony organised by Telfed on the morning of October 7. The Telfed Mo’adon (club house) in Ra’anana was filled to overflowing, as South African and affiliated Olim joined the ceremony.

Telfed Director, Doron Kline told the audience about some of Telfed’s work in the field during this past year. This included visits to soldiers, and generous financial assistance, by one of Telfed’s trusts, to displaced families enabling them to buy essentials, such as clothing and personal items.

The proceedings were arranged into seven categories, one for each of the seven soldiers of South African origin who have fallen in the battle against Hamas:

Daniel Shimon Perez Z”L, Regev Amar Reef Z”L, Shoam Moshe Ben Harush Z”L, Yaron Eliezer Chitiz Z”L, Ido Aviv Z”L, Nitai Metodi Z”L and Saar Margolis Z”L.

In addition, three victims of terror of South African origin, Marcelle Taljah Z”L, Roi Popplewell Z”L, and Nadav Popplewell Z”L, were commemorated.

Each category was represented by a candle lighting and a reading from a selected text by a member of the audience. The categories were:

Hostages killed, Hostages alive, Civilians killed, Soldiers killed, Wounded soldiers, Displaced people, Trauma and suffering.

Audience members were also invited to share their own experiences and emotions; some spoke of personal connections with victims and soldiers, other spoke of incidents of bravery that day in the kibbutzim, others recalled past personal traumas from years ago, but which are still fresh and emphasized by current events. There were not many dry eyes.

This moving and meaningful event epitomises the work, legacy and the vision of Telfed: to stand as a beacon of communal strength, as it has been for every year since Israel was founded.