On October 7, 2023, we woke to an unfathomable reality. Entire families massacred by Hamas terrorists. Hostages of all ages taken to Gaza. Brutal sexual assaults. Homes burned. From devastation in the south to escalating hostilities in the north, we have channeled our heartbreak into swift action and unwavering support for the people of Israel.
including 65,000 evacuees — have received support for trauma care, community activities, and informal education.
received mental health support.
received emergency supplies and protective gear in the early days of the war.
are receiving critical services to heal, cope with displacement, and rebuild.
have received interest-free loans to date.
received one-on-one therapy during the crucial first year after the attack.
received fire prevention equipment in response to the wave of fires resulting from Hezbollah bombardment.
have received direct support to cover emergency welfare needs while they continue to advocate for the return of their loved ones.
are receiving alternative therapy and reintegration needs.
in northern Israel received immediate emergency support to deal with the escalating conflict.
To date, we’ve allocated $134 million to meet acute emergency needs while also investing in what’s needed to heal physically, mentally, and economically.
Young Shai recounts his father and brother’s murder on 10/7.
“To see shattered families with faith in their eyes is very powerful.”
The Family Fund established by UJA in collaboration with the Hostage Forum addresses pressing needs that the Israeli government is unable to fulfill. To date, the Family Fund has distributed over $650,000 in financial assistance to more than 200 hostage family members (representing 100 families) who have put their lives on hold to fight day and night for the release of their loved ones.
Cash grants pay for rent and groceries, alternative mental health treatments, even a car to get to and from a rally. As we are about to reach the end of the first year of the war, family members have been out of the workplace for months, and with many of their relatives still in Gaza, their needs are only growing.
*This article was published before we learned the heartbreaking news of the six hostages murdered by Hamas.
Ziv Sela is a case manager at the Hostage Forum. At first, she was worried about taking on this role, but those fears were quickly dispelled.
“Contrary to my fears at the beginning about the atmosphere at the Hostage Forum, I discovered that there is so much hope in this place. The families walk around here with a conviction that they will see their loved ones entering the door,” Ziv says. “They only ask others who arrive to adhere to this path as well, that this is the only way they will return. To see shattered families with faith in their eyes is very powerful.”
On the other hand, there are also days when it feels like no one can breathe.
“When they announced they recovered the bodies of Yagev Buchstav, Nadav Popllewell, Haim Perry, Alex Danzig, Yoram Metzger, and Avraham Munder, there was a feeling of suffocation, and everything overflowed.”
The hostages remain on Ziv’s mind during the day at work and when she leaves at night. She says that sometimes she’ll catch a glimpse of a girl sitting in the café who looks like a hostage. And when she goes to sleep, the hostages are in her dreams as well.
Due to the circumstances, the case manager position requires focus and operational abilities, as well as extraordinary sensitivity. Ziv can’t help but get emotionally invested.
But there is also living proof that things can turn around Two of the hostages who were rescued by the IDF — Almog Meir Jan and Louis Har — walk the halls of the forum, and Louis laughs loudly.
"Seeing them in the corridors, resurrected from the posters [of the hostages on the wall of the forum] we've become so used to — it's something that gives us all hope.
“[The hostages are] not posters, they’re people who live among us and they need to return to us. And we, from our side, must do everything, day and night, to welcome them back with the warmest embrace.”
"We have to tell this story. The survivors are very few."
Even before October 7, Miriam Schler knew how to handle survivors.
As the executive director of the Tel Aviv Sexual Assault Crisis Center, she works with assault survivors daily. For her, one of the most important things the crisis center can do for survivors is validate their experience and offer support in any number of ways: one-on-one counseling (alone or with someone to comfort them), ongoing calls (to talk or simply to cry), and even guidance through the criminal process (pressing charges, filing complaints, physical accompaniment to the police).
But perhaps even more than validation and support, what Miriam hopes to give survivors is control of their situation: “When people call us, one of the main things that we try to do is give them back the power and give them back control over the situation, which was completely lost at the time of the assault.”
Validation, support, and autonomy. Three critical pieces of Miriam’s work — and three things that the world largely denied the survivors of October 7.
Orit Sulitzeanu saw this denial happening in real time too. As the CEO of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, funded in part by UJA, she oversees a coalition of all nine rape crisis centers in the country, including the one in Tel Aviv that Miriam directs.
With the influx of survivors from October 7 came an ever-growing pile of firsthand accounts, and not just from survivors: therapists, doctors, and first responders all reported the horrors they’d witnessed.
Orit knew their organization had to document all of it — but, of course, collecting all this information for a report wasn’t easy. “My researcher used to call me, and she told me, ‘I’m writing and I’m crying, I’m writing and I’m crying.’”
Still, their work, supported by UJA — and the work of all the rape crisis centers since October 7 — persists. “We have a mission to the world,” Orit says. “We have to tell this story. The survivors are very few. Most of the victims are no longer with us who will tell this story, who will talk about what has happened. We have this mission to do so.”
“We will dance again.”
People go to music festivals to hear their favorite bands, dance with friends, and connect with like-minded people. The 4,000 music lovers who attended the Nova music festival in Re’im came to do just that, but early in the morning of October 7, something went horribly wrong.
06:29 am: The Moment Music Stood Still is an art installation in lower Manhattan that recreates the grounds of the festival during and after the onslaught by Hamas terrorists. Co-produced by music executive Scooter Braun, with support from UJA-Federation, the exhibit highlights the day’s chaos and horror, when Hamas murdered more than 360 festival attendees and kidnapped 44 hostages.
The installation opens with a video of survivors addressing the camera. They discuss the power of trance music and how dance floors should be safe spaces. “Everyone is welcome on the dance floor,” one says.
Further into the exhibit, items from the actual festival — pitched tents, unrolled sleeping bags, knapsacks, clothing — are displayed under trees amidst rubble from the site. Screens are everywhere, blaring footage filmed by both terrorists and survivors. Past this, the charred frames of burned cars sit next to banners, porta-potties riddled with bullet holes, and the actual festival stage, rebuilt to scale.
Wandering through the exhibit, one can’t help feeling the ghosts of earlier antisemitism. A table filled with shoes abandoned by concertgoers recalls the mounds of footwear in Yad Vashem or Auschwitz. The date of the attack seems to have been chosen because it was a double holiday – Simchat Torah and Shabbat – in the way Nazi commanders were extra brutal to prisoners on Jewish holidays.
The exhibit is vital at this moment when distortions of Jewish motives and values seem to run rampant. UJA contributed more than $800,000 to build the exhibit and has been instrumental in organizing diverse delegations of New Yorkers to attend. Equally important, we’ve provided similar funding to organizations in Israel that support the needs of Nova survivors, their families, and the families of victims.
The installation ends with a promise: We will dance again. It’s a timeless Jewish value — that even in the middle of unimaginable pain and trauma, we will keep living.
“I had forgotten how to laugh.”
Friends described 28-year-old Omri Ram as a “North Star” who guided the way for others.
Omri, who loved sports, travel, and music, was one of the more than 360 vibrant young people viciously murdered by Hamas at the Nova music festival, which was billed as a gathering promoting peace and love. His parents, Menashe and Merav, felt isolated in their grief. And then they discovered Adama Tova (Good Earth).
The brainchild of Einat Haimovich, a social worker and longtime member of the trance music community, and her partner, Yiftach Shahar, Adama Tova was created as a place where broken parents could come find hope and healing. Located at the couple’s moshav just south of Tel Aviv, it’s one of the newest initiatives UJA is funding.
Some 50 volunteers come to help in numerous ways — from serving hot soup to incorporating Tibetan sound bowls into meditation and body work and art therapy.
Omri’s father shared how he found community at Adama Tova.
“In the beginning after Nova, we were all alone,” Menashe recalled. “We got support from family and friends, yes, but we had to experience the loss and feel it all by ourselves. Adama Tova was the first place we went where we could just breathe easier.”
“Sometimes, in the circle of parents we met with, we would even find ourselves laughing,” he said with wonder. “I had forgotten how to laugh.”
In Menashe’s eyes, Einat and Yiftach are “like angels on the ground.”
Einat says, “People describe Adama Tova as a second family, and it means a lot to me that we can help so many people, as difficult as it is to watch people struggle with their grief and trauma. October 7 didn’t end for so many people, and we have to continue to be there for them.”
“The music stopped at 6:29 a.m."
So many of the Nova survivors start their stories the same way — the exact time they knew something was not right. Then the stories diverge slightly. When and how they realized they were under attack. The horrors they witnessed. Friends and loved ones they lost.
There’s a common survivor’s guilt, a realization that it could have just as easily been them. One survivor says, “If I went to the other bomb shelter (where the terrorists breached the walls) my whole destiny would be changed.”
Of the almost 4,000 people at Nova, more than 360 were murdered.
We asked what draws people to the trance music scene, and who are these young people who gather in the desert to dance through the night? Fans describe a “holistic community, free spirits who respected each other no matter what.”
They were young people who believed in peace and acceptance, adding a terrible irony to what they endured.
Three weeks after October 7, the traumatized survivors started gathering at an industrial space in Namal, by the port. On the wall, a sign reads: “We will dance again.” But this is no normal dance space, no normal dance party.
In one corner, there is art therapy run by professional counselors. In another, there’s a booth from the Ministry of Welfare with people who can help survivors navigate government benefits — from unemployment to mental health support.
UJA was one of the first and largest funders to recognize the unique needs of Nova survivors, and so we’re funding this weekly dance party that’s also a healing session, a place to grieve, a time and space to process the unimaginable. We’re also funding workshops, retreats, community meetings, wellness courses, and more.
But it’s dancing that’s become the ultimate act of resilience — and defiance. With our support, survivors are reclaiming the music, dancing for life.
“Israel will bloom even greener.”
Why kill chickens? Why break the irrigation equipment? Why sabotage reservoirs?
Hamas indiscriminately killed people on October 7. That we know. Less known is how they systematically targeted agricultural infrastructure.
Danielle Abraham, who heads ReGrow Israel, a UJA grantee, explains what motivated this spiteful brand of “agro-terrorism.”
The Western Negev, Israel’s breadbasket, produces 70% of the nation’s vegetables, 20% of the fruit, 6.5% of the dairy. Along with disrupting national security, Hamas terrorists had planned to instigate food insecurity.
Danielle explains how Hamas recognized on some level that Zionism is about Jewish connection to the land. “It’s not a theoretical connection. It’s about working the land, making the desert bloom — and they wanted to break our connection,” she says.
Hamas failed. Because despite the devastation, the Jewish connection to the land is stronger than ever.
Danielle credits farmers as the heroes in this story.
Like Motti from Be’eri, a veteran of the war in Lebanon, who returned to the kibbutz within days of the attack, even while Hamas fighters were still present, to care for the livestock.
Now, UJA’s funding to ReGrow will help the agriculture sector come back stronger.
“Out of every catastrophe — and this is beyond our worst nightmares — we see the opportunity to once again regain our pride in agriculture,” Danielle says.
Israel will bloom even greener and more abundantly than ever before.
We’re living through what might be the most consequential chapter in our shared history, with intensely competing pressures coming from every direction. We’re also witnessing a once-in-a-generation outpouring of Jewish pride and a hunger for Jewish life.
It’s not philanthropy as usual.
