Last week, I attended a touching, light-filled book premiere. “Life Story” – Sippur Haim (סיפור חיים) is a project that emerged about a week after the war began – a voluntary undertaking dedicated entirely to writing books to commemorate the fallen of October 7, 2023. We have already reported on this several times over the past year and a half. So many murdered, fallen and dead – every single one of them was a light, an entire world. Each of them left behind families who, sad and broken, are now trying to put the pieces of their lives back together again. These stories are a new chronicle in Israel’s history.
Several representatives of the grieving families spoke at the event. All agreed the process of collecting memories and writing was a deeply healing journey. Some chose a chronological narrative to record the life of their loved one. Many widowed women with young children chose to write children’s books, in a more accessible, lighter language, so that their children could get to know their father who died in the war. Others wrote literary prose, and perhaps one day may even turn their stories into a movie or a play.
A young man and a young woman in their twenties, both of whose parents were murdered on the same terrible day, decided to write a book that their future children could read. Through this book the grandchildren will get to know their grandparents, their humor, where they liked to go, the food, the smells and the atmosphere at home. All of this was to be transmitted through this book. A team of writers, editors, illustrators and other professionals was brought together for each family; and so began this extraordinary process.
On October 7, 2023, words failed us. Even the rich Hebrew language seemed to have run out of ways to describe the extent of the horror that befell our country. But the words returned; people opened up again; hearts were connected, and the individual life stories in books began to take shape.
More and more families want to take part and record the life stories of their loved ones in words and books. The premiere evening was no ordinary day of remembrance. It was an evening of gratitude – for what is possible even in the most difficult moments of life. An evening full of light. Families and an entire people who manage to preserve and carry on the Israelite spirit.
Readers of Israel Today supported the project.
Dana Ben-Shlomi, the initiator of this huge project, is a good friend of mine and she said two sentences that gave me goosebumps on the evening of the book launch:
“We are writing the new Yad Vashem (Holocaust memorial).”
That’s a precise description of the feeling of “Shoah” that many experienced on October 7. And in the second sentence, Dana said:
“Today we are writing the new book of Chronicles in the history of Israel.”
To date, 200 books – new “chronicles” – have been written; and hundreds more are being written. What an initiative! And many dear friends and readers among you have also played a significant part in this unfinished mission of Israeli life stories! Because of you, so far, Israel Today has already contributed around 20,000 euros to this important effort.
In Judaism, remembrance is a sacred mission. It is the heart of identity, the key to the future, and protection against self-forgetfulness. For Israel, remembrance means preserving not only the pain, but also the dignity, faith, and vision to live on in spite of everything. Biblical remembrance sharpens moral vigilance:
“Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren.” (Deuteronomy 4:9 NKJV)
Memory not only preserves the past, it protects the future. Remembrance is an act of resistance against forgetting, against trivialization, and against repetition of evil.
In Judaism, remembrance is not a passive looking back, but an active action in the light of the past. Israel sees itself as a people with a history, not just as a country with borders. Biblical Israel lives from tradition, from the stories of the fathers, from the Exodus from Egypt, from the giving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai, from the exile and from the return. Without memory, there would be no collective “we,” no common calling, no shared future.
What particularly touched me was a story told of accompanying a young widow, aged 27, who had only been married to her husband for three months before he was killed in the war. After compiling his life story, Dana asked her to write another chapter, this time about herself. Where does she see herself in five or ten years? What are her dreams? Her goals? Because: the memory should remain forever, but so should the hope for the future. And through the stories, a light should continue to shine into the world. This is a mission that we will continue to fully support.
