From Kibbutz Nir Oz

"What does the world need most from me?"

This is always my question to myself. And I'm not 100% certain right now.

And while I'm uncertain about many things in life right now I find my own "survival guide" to be helpful. So....step one:

SHOW UP. I showed up to Israel and had the most unbelievable two weeks. I gave hugs. I cried with strangers and laughed with family. I laughed with people when we couldn't understand each other's language but could understand a hug.

DO THE NEXT RIGHT THING: And number one for me is I have to bear witness. I went. I saw. I listened. I took photos and videos. Amidst the rest of the bits that I think to share with you that I truly hope are useful or meaningful to you in work and in life, I'll be sharing pictures, video and thoughts from this trip.

In bearing witness post number one- attached is the moment that gutted me. I was touring Kibbutz Nir Oz.

First, let me tell you- it's beautiful there. I mean peaceful and full of the sights and smells of growth and nature and peace. I now understand why generations of families have chosen to build and live among the regular rockets from Gaza (rockets that did not stop in Kibbutz Nir Oz for a single year since Israelis stopped living in Gaza). It's obvious, I mean palpable, that this is a vibrant community of people who live close to each other, close to the land and close to beauty.

Nir Oz is also the home of Baby Kfir and the Bibas family, who are still hostages in the tunnels of despair in Gaza. Kfir turned one in Gaza the week I was in his home.

One in four people who lived in peace at Kibbutz Nir Oz were massacred or taken hostage on October 7. One in four neighbors, children, grandchildren, parents, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives. One in four. Look around your neighborhood, now imagine a quarter of everyone dead in front of you.

Amidst all of this beauty and horror and life and destruction stood this tricycle.

For years, neighbors from Gaza, which we could see from the Kibbutz, came to Kibbutz Nir Oz to eat and play and work and share family events. For decades these Palestinian friends and neighbors came back and forth from Gaza to this beautiful piece of land and warmth and friendship. On October 7 the very same, the very same people who had been thought to be like family came back and for over 12 hours they killed, maimed, destroyed, raped, mutilated ...

And they burned.

They burned the houses. They burned babies in ovens. They burned families alive. And the heat from the burning houses and burning babies, the ash and the smoke and stench of burning bodies circled the homes and the gardens...

And outside of the now empty Bibas home stood this bicycle. The heat was so strong that it melted.

Kfir, while much of the world may forget you. I will not. I will bear witness. You will have a home to come home to. Am Yisrael Chai- together we will live.