Bay Area Jewish Community 'Heartbroken' by Harrowing Stories From Oct. 7 Survivors

Local Jewish groups invited two survivors of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel to speak at the Congregation Emanu-El synagogue in San Francisco on Thursday night.

Sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Jewish Community Federation, the event was mostly attended by members of the Bay Area Jewish community.

Maayan Barkai and Elad Kidar were both residents of Kibbutz Be’eri, a cooperative living settlement in southern Israel, just a few miles from the Gaza Strip, when dozens of Hamas fighters stormed the community.

Kidar said his mom, who was jogging outside of the kibbutz, said she’d been shot at, and then the call ended. “I tried to call her again, but there was no answer.”

Kidar and his wife took two of their kids to their bomb shelter and began texting their two other sons, who were staying at an aunt’s house.

“All this time, they text us, ‘Come and take us, we love you, and please don’t die,’” Kidar said.

Around 1 a.m., Kidar said he and his family were loaded onto an armored van for evacuation. He recalled blocking his children’s eyes from the bodies and destruction they passed on their way out.

He later learned that his father had been killed and his mother had been kidnapped, but he said the Israeli military suspected she was dead as well.

Barkai’s story was similar. He said he hid in his bomb shelter with his wife and children, and when the assailants could not get inside, they set his home on fire.

“In Be’eri, most of the people were murdered in two major ways,” Barkai said. “Some people were suffocated in the bomb shelters. And some people, when they couldn’t breathe and went out, the terrorists waited outside and killed them when they tried to escape the flames.”

The family waited in their burning home until the coast was clear, then they ran to a neighbor’s house and waited until they were evacuated around 3 a.m. Barkai said he is living in a hotel near the Dead Sea along with the other survivors of the attack. Barkai said he lives in a hotel near the Dead Sea with the other survivors.

“We’re looking forward, we’re looking one step ahead. Our next phase is, in five months from now, we’re going to be [guests] in another kibbutz,” he said.

Marco Sermoneta, the consul general of Israel to the Pacific Northwest, said last night that 93 people were killed in Kibbutz Be’eri that day and 23 were kidnapped, though some estimates place the casualties above 100. Across all of Israel, an estimated 1,200 people were killed in the invasion.

Israel’s invasion and bombardment of Gaza over the months that have followed have resulted in over 27,000 casualties and more than 66,000 wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Matt Levin, a member of the synagogue where the event was held, said the accounts of the two men deeply moved him.

“Both spoke about their sense of hope and optimism and how they’re helping their children move forward in the face of tragedy,” Levin said. “That was humbling to hear. Heartbreaking to hear.”

Adrienne Green, another attendee, shared a similar sentiment.

“The thing that sticks out the most to me is that this horrific event happened to these two lovely men, and they still have such strength and resilience and optimism about the future,” Green said.

Ellen Brotsky, a Bay Area chapter council member of the Jewish Voice for Peace, which describes itself as a Jewish anti-Zionist organization, said the event was an attempt by pro-Israel advocacy groups to use the grief of survivors to deflect attention away from what she called “Israel’s current genocide” in Gaza.

“We are members of the Jewish community who grieve the killing of Israeli civilians and internationals on October 7th AND who refuse to support Israel’s genocide against Palestinians,” Brotsky said in a written statement. “The families of Israeli hostages are saying they want ‘Everyone for Everyone’ — every hostage and every Palestinian political prisoner freed. And we agree. We want every person free, safe, and with their families. The only way to achieve that goal is with a permanent cease-fire.”

Several Bay Area city governments, including San Francisco, Oakland, and Richmond, have issued resolutions advocating for a cease-fire in the conflict — and calls for a “Free Palestine” have echoed across dozens of large protests and rallies in the region.