Kfar Aza

The first time was three years ago.

He was episode number 14, a few weeks after his brother, Omer Hermesh, was murdered in his house in Kfar Aza on October 7th.

It was a horrible story, a horrible time.

Go watch our conversation from three years ago first and then come back and be with us for this amazing conversation that I just had with Lino.

They went there to dance.

In a right side up world, Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz, and the other communities attacked that morning would still look like neighborhoods when people talked about them.

A half-eaten breakfast, laundry, a dog waiting for somebody, a child's room, bikes outside, the ordinary mess of people who expected to be alive that afternoon.

There is a point where history becomes a very poor answer for a terrorist walking into somebody's kitchen.

For months, Yad Mordechai's residents lived out of suitcases in hotels, balancing the profound relief of survival with the painful sting of displacement, and perhaps a bit of survivor's guilt.

The nearby kibbutzim of Be'eri and Kfar Aza were graveyards.

Dozens of their residents were missing, dead, or kidnapped.

The residents of Yad Mordechai understood that if not for a combination of miracles, they could have so easily shared that fate.

They want to invade the settlements.

Kfar Aza, Nahal Oz, Be'eri, Alumim, Re'im.

The Arabs burn their fields, dream of murdering them.

Hamas incites these murderers in Gaza, men, women, and children, and the disabled, to storm the fences to slaughter them.

Absolutely.

And I think I first met you in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, so that was one of the worst sites of, uh, destruction following October the 7th.

And, uh, you were showing us around to...

And I know you showed so many, uh, different, uh, media personnel and different officials.

Absolutely.

And, and so you were showing journalists, you're going network to network.

Um, you also showed me around Kfar Aza, and of course, one of the places worst hit was that area where the young people live-

Right

We have some really, uh, disturbing new information, uh, out of Israel.

The Israeli Prime Minister's spokesman just confirmed babies and toddlers were found with their heads decapitated in Kfar Aza in southern Israel after Hamas attacks in the kibbutz over the weekend.

That has been confirmed.

They have no Iron Dome.

So it's very interesting, this, this way of seeing, with very old images, sometimes recycled too.

Interesting point, which takes us to the Middle East, to Israel, where at sunrise Wednesday, vigils, uh, began marking three years since the massacres of October the 7th at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, which is two kilometers from the Gaza border, a memorial held in the armory, the last line of local defense, with a moment of silence at the exact time the attack started, 6:29 AM.

It was one of hundreds of vigils across the country through the day.

The main remembrance service in Tel Aviv and an evening music memorial at the Nova Festival site.

October 7th will eventually become a lesson, and the real question is what we will teach.

I hope future Jewish children learn what happened in Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz, and Nova.

I hope they learn about the people who were murdered, the people who were taken, the failures that allowed the attack to happen, and the courage that followed.

I hope they understand why October 7th changed Israel and why it changed Jews far beyond Israel's borders.