Speaker 1: Welcome back to she Pivo. My name is Eden Gufner.
Speaker 2: Welcome to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk with
Speaker 2: women who dared to pivot out of one career and
Speaker 2: into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted
Speaker 2: these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Today's episode
Speaker 2: is particularly important to me. Today I'm sitting down with
Speaker 2: Eden Geffner, a survivor of the October seventh terrorist attack
Speaker 2: in Israel. Today mark's the one year anniversary since the attacks,
Speaker 2: and this feels like the right time to share her story.
Speaker 2: Eden lives in Tel Aviv and iscontinuing her studies. We
Speaker 2: often ask our guests if there's a nonprofit that they
Speaker 2: want us to share on the website, and Eden asked
Speaker 2: us to share Faces of October seven, which was the
Speaker 2: organization that brought her over to the US, to share
Speaker 2: her story. So you can find that link on the
Speaker 2: sheep of its website.
Speaker 3: I'm Jewish, and growing up we were always taught to
Speaker 3: carry on stories of our ancestors, to never forget it's
Speaker 3: deeply ingrained in our religion and our culture. So sharing
Speaker 3: Eden's story felt not only important but necessary to me.
Speaker 3: Eden lived in Kibbutz reyin a kibbutz that was part
Speaker 3: of the quote Gaza envelope, meaning that it was extremely
Speaker 3: close to the Gaza border, just three miles in fact.
Speaker 3: She grew up there among a vibrant, closely knit community.
Speaker 3: Now twenty nine, Eden lives in Tel Aviv, but had
Speaker 3: gone home to visit her parents and an old childhood
Speaker 3: friend on October sixth, in twenty twenty three. Growing up
Speaker 3: so close to the Gazen border, there was always a
Speaker 3: sense of unease. They never felt truly safe, as Eden
Speaker 3: will tell you in this episode, but they could have
Speaker 3: never imagined what would unfold around them in the early
Speaker 3: hours of October seventh. Eden recounts the horrowing events of
Speaker 3: October seventh and how she learned from them. She speaks
Speaker 3: with vulnerability, honesty, and kindness, something rare and beautiful amongst
Speaker 3: all of the pain. First and foremost, Eden's experience is
Speaker 3: singular and important. Her story is one of thousands from
Speaker 3: that day that have been under reported, and I feel
Speaker 3: honored to give her the space and the platform to
Speaker 3: share her story uninterrupted. However, there are thousands of experiences
Speaker 3: that have unfolded over the past year, many of them
Speaker 3: filled with suffering, many of them not Israeli or Jewish.
Speaker 3: This podcast isn't meant as a solution, but as a
Speaker 3: way to showcase a story that feels important to me
Speaker 3: as a Jewish person. The Jewish faith talks about how
Speaker 3: each person contains a universe, and it breaks my heart
Speaker 3: to think about what we have lost in those who
Speaker 3: died Jewish and Palestinian. To say the loss has been
Speaker 3: immense as an understatement, and I want to recognize the
Speaker 3: suffering and the death of all. I hope you hold
Speaker 3: space for Eden as you listen to this episode and
Speaker 3: continue to stay in gain and educated. This episode contains
Speaker 3: references to violence and topics that may be setting to some.
Speaker 3: Please listen with care.
Speaker 1: My name is Eden Gufner and I'm a student. I'm
Speaker 1: studying a dual degree in management and psychology, and in
Speaker 1: my free time, I'm working as a PI largist in structure.
Speaker 3: Okay, so where are you from? Where were you born?
Speaker 1: So? I was born in kibut Im, Kibot Reim. It's
Speaker 1: located in Gaza envelope in Israel. We say Gaza envelope
Speaker 1: because like we are the keybod seem that actually like
Speaker 1: Circule the Gaza strip, so I was born there. I
Speaker 1: have only two borders, big borders. I'm the little princess,
Speaker 1: so I have to be big brothers. And my grandma
Speaker 1: live in Tel Aviv. We're really smaller family. My mom
Speaker 1: actually came for Buenos Ayreus. She came from Argentina, and
Speaker 1: my father was born in Israel. But they didn't have
Speaker 1: a connection to this area like at all. My grandpa
Speaker 1: didn't live there, like we didn't have a friend that
Speaker 1: lived there. But when my father was in the army,
Speaker 1: in his weekend, he liked to come to the kibuts
Speaker 1: because in the army you can join to a group
Speaker 1: that going each weekend to do a kibut seem in
Speaker 1: the south, and my father used to visit there in
Speaker 1: the in the weekends. And my father fell in love
Speaker 1: in this area because my area is so beautiful. It's
Speaker 1: like the countryside of Israel, and it's just so quiet.
Speaker 1: It's so peaceful to live there. Sometimes it's ironic that
Speaker 1: the same peaceful, but the fact that it was truly peaceful.
Speaker 1: And my mother just said yes, because they want to
Speaker 1: go our family and to grow our family in the city.
Speaker 1: It's a bit complicated, so they wanted for us to
Speaker 1: grow up like in the countryside of Israel.
Speaker 3: I was actually wondering, how did your parents meet, because
Speaker 3: that had your parents met?
Speaker 1: Actually my my mom, My mom is Jewish, and my
Speaker 1: mom grew up in Argentina, in Buenos Ayrus, and I
Speaker 1: think that back then Buenos Ayrus wasn't a super safe
Speaker 1: place to grow up because the situation over there and
Speaker 1: the corruption. So she decided to do Aliyah too is weell.
Speaker 1: And one day when she became a teacher a few
Speaker 1: years there later, so one day at school and her
Speaker 1: and her work, one of her friends want to set
Speaker 1: her up blinded like she do, we say, and this
Speaker 1: she was my father and they met in some university
Speaker 1: outside of some university in Israel, and they follow in love. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't think that people realize that that many Jews
Speaker 3: fled Europe during and after World War Two, both the
Speaker 3: South America and Mexico.
Speaker 1: Yes, a lot of Jewish. My mom's side, they escaped
Speaker 1: from Poland, and my father's side escaped from you like
Speaker 1: now Ukraine, but back then it was a part of
Speaker 1: the Union, so viet I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, same as my family. What is the other
Speaker 3: formers of you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm not so sure because my grandpa didn't
Speaker 1: speak so much about the time. But my grandpa actually
Speaker 1: was escaping from the Holocaust. His entire family was murder
Speaker 1: over there in the concentration camp. So my grandpa escaped
Speaker 1: to Israel and then he met my grandpa. My grandma's
Speaker 1: or is Sarah. My father was born after that of
Speaker 1: my second Marrit.
Speaker 3: Your grandfather didn't talk about it much, but was that
Speaker 3: kind of part of your family tradition, like family history,
Speaker 3: like to have that understanding that you were there because
Speaker 3: your family was able to flee.
Speaker 1: It's crazy because I think that only now when I'm
Speaker 1: hearing this in this tour about speaking about what happened
Speaker 1: in the Keyboots Only now I'm really posing and stopping,
Speaker 1: I would say, and just think about my history. Because
Speaker 1: my father is like a really tough Keybootsnaker. It's a
Speaker 1: really tough person. Don't like speak about a lot about
Speaker 1: his history and speak about a lot like how it
Speaker 1: was to grow up with a Holocaust survivor, because I'm
Speaker 1: sure that to gow up with a father that survived
Speaker 1: the Holocaust is not super easy. So my father didn't
Speaker 1: speak so much about our words. Is super proud in
Speaker 1: his words, but we don't speak so much in his words.
Speaker 1: So only now when I'm standing and speaking with the people,
Speaker 1: I'm really starting to think about my history, about that
Speaker 1: my grandpa escaped from the Holocaust and letting me live
Speaker 1: in Israel because this is like, this is my words.
Speaker 1: I needed to be proud of my Jewish And then
Speaker 1: the fact that I'm living in Israel because my grandpa
Speaker 1: was fighting so hard to do aliatu as well, and
Speaker 1: fighting so hard to come to this heaven, I would say,
Speaker 1: So I think that only now I'm starting to speak
Speaker 1: with my father about our history, and I'm starting to
Speaker 1: feel so proud in my history because my grandpa actually
Speaker 1: give me a life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an important part of Jewish tradition, at least
Speaker 3: here in the States, and I imagine for you as well.
Speaker 3: But we always say that we bear witness, like we
Speaker 3: don't turn away from our history. We need to understand
Speaker 3: the stories so that it doesn't happen again.
Speaker 1: Yes, and it's even more hard because in Israel, in
Speaker 1: the high school, you go to a history exam, and
Speaker 1: I will say, when you need to go to exam
Speaker 1: on the Holocaust, I can't understand because my grandpa was
Speaker 1: if I it was in the Holocaust. So to learn
Speaker 1: about the history in Israel and to learn it back
Speaker 1: then when I was eighteen, and then I will say,
Speaker 1: to experience a kind of second Holocaust. But in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, it was crazy because when you grew up
Speaker 1: in Israel and you do this exam about the Holocaust,
Speaker 1: you know that this is your legacy. But nobody could
Speaker 1: imagine that it will be happening again. I was preparing
Speaker 1: myself about the concentuation cap and how the Nazis was
Speaker 1: killing the jew. I didn't imagine that the same thing
Speaker 1: maybe will happen to me some days. So it's crazy
Speaker 1: because this is it was like I was feeling that
Speaker 1: this is my legacy. I would say, this is my history.
Speaker 1: But now it became even more personal.
Speaker 3: Still with the dream of raising their kids in the
Speaker 3: countryside of Israel, ed And and her family moved to
Speaker 3: Kibbut's Rhyme in the western part of the country.
Speaker 1: Keyboots. It's really beautiful a way to grow up and
Speaker 1: to live because you live in I would say in
Speaker 1: a group, for example, my parents when they get a
Speaker 1: salary each month, they entered the salary to the Kyboots,
Speaker 1: and the Kiboots just give you the money back, but
Speaker 1: by the children that you have, Like for example, if
Speaker 1: you have two children, you get this amount of money.
Speaker 1: And if you want to do some activities or something
Speaker 1: like this, you need to ask money from the key Boots.
Speaker 1: Or just if you want to, like to do your
Speaker 1: driving license, you need to go to the secretary of
Speaker 1: the Keyboots and tell them, hey, I need to do
Speaker 1: my driver lescense and I grew up with a bunch
Speaker 1: of friends, like from the kindergarten until high school, with
Speaker 1: the same group of friends. I think that's like the
Speaker 1: most we say wonderful things in the key Boots. It's
Speaker 1: the value of take care of each other. Because everything
Speaker 1: you do not for you for your own success, you
Speaker 1: do it for the group success. So you work for
Speaker 1: the Keyboots. Like I remember that my mom going edge
Speaker 1: Saturday to milk the cows, and some saturdays you go
Speaker 1: to work in the dining room. And all of the
Speaker 1: holidays you need to volunteer, and like, who are going
Speaker 1: to make this holiday, this pasta, this Hanukah, So everybody
Speaker 1: just like doing a lot of volunteering in see the Keyboots.
Speaker 3: You mentioned the holidays. Is everybody Jewish? Do you have
Speaker 3: to be Jewish? No?
Speaker 1: I think in the Keyboots you don't have to be
Speaker 1: to be Jewish. We have a lot of Christians, a
Speaker 1: lot of Catholic, a lot of also Arabic, like we
Speaker 1: are the key Boots. Like the value that are super
Speaker 1: important for us is to work the land, agriculture, the education.
Speaker 1: So for us, if you will be like a Christian
Speaker 1: a Muslim, for us, it is not mattering what you believe,
Speaker 1: like we accept you as a person, as a human being.
Speaker 3: When you were growing up on the Koboat, what did
Speaker 3: you think you wanted to do? Like when you grew up, Like,
Speaker 3: how did you imagine your life? Did you always want
Speaker 3: to stay there?
Speaker 1: Actually, when I grew up in the key Boots, I
Speaker 1: really love the history of the place of my key
Speaker 1: Boots area. So I really I was dreamed to become
Speaker 1: a acheolgit archaeologic.
Speaker 3: I think it's the word archaeologist is the person, Yes, archaeologist.
Speaker 1: It's really challenging my accent.
Speaker 3: It's a hard word even in English.
Speaker 1: So because my area it's a beautiful area and you
Speaker 1: have this all this kind of like old houses from
Speaker 1: ancient time. So I was dreamed to become areology Areo
Speaker 1: logit and to live in the area and discover more
Speaker 1: history about my place.
Speaker 3: But like every Israeli citizen, I didn't had to serve
Speaker 3: at least two years in the army, but for her
Speaker 3: it held a deeper, more important meaning.
Speaker 1: I will say that we are the people who live
Speaker 1: in the kybout seem for us to go to serving
Speaker 1: the army it's respect. We actually we are so competition
Speaker 1: between like me and my friend are so competitive, like
Speaker 1: which position I will get because we grew up in
Speaker 1: Gaza envelope and because we understand how much to serve
Speaker 1: the army it's important. For us. It was like the
Speaker 1: biggest mission that we need to do and the biggest
Speaker 1: exam that we need to success in it. Because for
Speaker 1: us to serving the army was like a respect and
Speaker 1: for me, like me and my friend, like I was
Speaker 1: excited to go to the army. I will say that
Speaker 1: I think it or for a start, I will say
Speaker 1: that to serving the army was make me more matured
Speaker 1: and make me I would say, make me more matured,
Speaker 1: in my life. I think that to serve in the
Speaker 1: army give you a little bit of time to grow up,
Speaker 1: to be more we say tough, to experience some things
Speaker 1: in your life that you will never experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, first of all, how was your English so good?
Speaker 3: And also what did you do in the army. What
Speaker 3: was your job in the army.
Speaker 1: I was a fitness instruction in the Army. I really
Speaker 1: like to instruct people and I really love to work
Speaker 1: with human beings and I all my life used to
Speaker 1: dance ballet, So for me, this combination was wonderful. So
Speaker 1: I was a fitness instructor in the intelligence in some
Speaker 1: intelligence base in Israel. But after maybe six months I
Speaker 1: needed I was feeling that I want to do even
Speaker 1: more and I want to be in charge of the
Speaker 1: fitness instructure in the army. So after the school of
Speaker 1: the Officer, my first position was actually a navigation officer.
Speaker 1: It was a little bit different from what I did
Speaker 1: in the start, but for me it was super cool
Speaker 1: because I was going like everywhere in Israel. I was
Speaker 1: traveling to the south of Israel, to the north in Israel,
Speaker 1: and just like making a map, a navigation map for
Speaker 1: the soldier for them to understand more good the area
Speaker 1: because like in the north, close to Lebanon, they will
Speaker 1: have a lot of forests. So I actually built an
Speaker 1: a vacation over there for them for maybe in the
Speaker 1: future they will need to It's said because now we
Speaker 1: have a situation with Lebanon, because in Sunday, someday, they
Speaker 1: will need to get to know this area the best
Speaker 1: that they can. So my role was to build an
Speaker 1: vigation map and to instruct i will say, combat the
Speaker 1: soldier to understand them. And after that, I was a
Speaker 1: fitness officer of the tank unit in Israel. It's called
Speaker 1: the She's a Phone. I was over there for one
Speaker 1: year and I love it so much because to understand
Speaker 1: the power of the army. If you want to understand
Speaker 1: the power of the army, you need to go to
Speaker 1: the tank unit because it's amazing. And after that I
Speaker 1: was released from the army and like because all of
Speaker 1: the Israeling going to travel after we finished the army.
Speaker 1: For a few months in South America, I yet to
Speaker 1: know a few friends from Europe and then I was
Speaker 1: starting to speak with them English because they don't understand Nebro.
Speaker 1: So from that point I was starting to work on
Speaker 1: my English, and I'm happy. I would say that I
Speaker 1: wish that we will not be must go to the army.
Speaker 1: I would say, because I wish that the situation is well,
Speaker 1: will be a little bit different, that we don't must
Speaker 1: go to the army, and that we have a peace
Speaker 1: in the Middle East between us and the country that
Speaker 1: surrounded us. So now when I'm thinking that I need
Speaker 1: like that, I'm studying my college only in twenty two
Speaker 1: twenty four, and I said especially I was officer in
Speaker 1: the army because I wanted to stay more in the
Speaker 1: army and to serve more use than just to challenge
Speaker 1: myself over there. So I finished the army in the
Speaker 1: age of twenty fourth instead of twenty two twenty one,
Speaker 1: because I really love to serve in the army. But
Speaker 1: now when I'm looking it back, I wish it tell
Speaker 1: it was a little bit different. But I understand that
Speaker 1: this is a situation that we need to serve in
Speaker 1: the army that we want. But I will say that
Speaker 1: I wish that the situation was different in Israel, Like
Speaker 1: I wish that we have this friend that when you
Speaker 1: say to the young children, when we go up, we
Speaker 1: will not we will not need to go to the
Speaker 1: army tegdorvoloya. We say anybo, because we all the time
Speaker 1: wish in our heart to peace, to live in peaceful
Speaker 1: in Israel. We don't. We will without to be a
Speaker 1: concern about what happened, what will be in an extract threat.
Speaker 1: So I just reminded right now that every mom tell
Speaker 1: her son and tell her daughter that I wish when
Speaker 1: you will be eighteen, the army will not be obligation anymore.
Speaker 3: When we come back. Eden tells us about what her
Speaker 3: life looked like after serving in the Middle Terry. After serving,
Speaker 3: I didn't plan to take time to travel, but like
Speaker 3: so many of us, her plans were interrupted by COVID.
Speaker 1: So I when I came back to Israel, I came
Speaker 1: back because of the COVID. I was planned to travel
Speaker 1: three months more to go to Argentina to meet my grandma,
Speaker 1: to do Pesta with my family. But then COVID happened
Speaker 1: and I was so angry. So I lived for a
Speaker 1: while in the keyboots. I was working in the keyboots
Speaker 1: because for me, it was like I didn't live for
Speaker 1: a few years in the keyboots. Because I was living
Speaker 1: in the Army, so I needed, like to settle damage
Speaker 1: with the keyboots, to think about my future. And then
Speaker 1: it was kind of opportunity to move to Tel Aviv
Speaker 1: and for me to move from a small keyboats a
Speaker 1: super priceful keyboots to like the main Tel Aviv. It
Speaker 1: was a little bit hard. I was. I was a
Speaker 1: little bit overwhelming, and I was like, I think twenty
Speaker 1: four twenty five and I decided to move to the
Speaker 1: city and I was starting to search a job in
Speaker 1: the fitness I would say, yeah, world, after maybe one
Speaker 1: year or so that I'm doing just like an ordinary job,
Speaker 1: I entered to a studio that I really love. I'm
Speaker 1: working in a fit house. It's like a pilate studio,
Speaker 1: the best place in tel Aviv. And from back then,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking that I'm working three years in Tel Aviv
Speaker 1: in the same studio and I love it so much.
Speaker 1: And I think that each year of living in Tel Aviv,
Speaker 1: like each year was super different from the year before.
Speaker 3: The weekend of the attack, Edin was still living in
Speaker 3: Tel Aviv and I tried it viausse her family as
Speaker 3: often as she was able. Work was busy and it
Speaker 3: had been months, but finally the weekend of October sixth,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, she and her boyfriend Amit found the
Speaker 3: time to go back to visit both her family and
Speaker 3: her childhood friend. Danielle was in town visiting.
Speaker 1: But in that weekend, like it was one of the
Speaker 1: weekend that I understand that I that I don't need
Speaker 1: to work in the weekend, so I can't go and
Speaker 1: visit my family, and a meet was agreed to come
Speaker 1: with me also, so I would say yes, like the
Speaker 1: star was aligned for me to go. It's ironic, but
Speaker 1: the star was aligned to let me go to visit
Speaker 1: my parents in the Keyboots and it's crazy. I w
Speaker 1: a short story that like when you wre up in
Speaker 1: the Keyboots, you used to think about the other all
Speaker 1: the time, Like before I'm thinking about myself, I will
Speaker 1: think about my friends, to think about daniel to take
Speaker 1: about Tel and my mom, Like she dont like this
Speaker 1: this scale, it's not scale, but this this scale off
Speaker 1: I have. But because I have such a good friend,
Speaker 1: it came to visit from New York in that weekend
Speaker 1: in the Keyboots because she was growing up with me
Speaker 1: in the Keyboots. But when she was twenty five, she
Speaker 1: left the Keyboots and moved to New York, but in
Speaker 1: that weekend she was in Israel. So I was like asking,
Speaker 1: like for me to see Danielle because for me, friendship
Speaker 1: is like the biggest value that I have in my life.
Speaker 1: So I made everything too that I will go this
Speaker 1: weekend to the Keyboats. Like I was scheduling with my job,
Speaker 1: I was convincing on meat. I was telling my parents
Speaker 1: that I come like I prepare it like everything, because
Speaker 1: like for me, friendship is like it's everything, I would say.
Speaker 1: So I arranged everything that me and it will come
Speaker 1: to the Keyboats to meet it daniel before she came
Speaker 1: back to New York. And I remember that when we
Speaker 1: came to the Keyboats in the sixth of October, we
Speaker 1: have this fun night we just play cards, and we
Speaker 1: don't play cards so much, so we just like play cards,
Speaker 1: like sit in one of our parents' balcony, in the
Speaker 1: family balcony. We just sat there like like drinking with
Speaker 1: the parents of the neighborhood. Because it was like really
Speaker 1: common that you're sitting with your parents and your parents'
Speaker 1: friends and everybody just like sat in a big table
Speaker 1: and just like play played the cards and just drink
Speaker 1: and just having so much fun. So we have like
Speaker 1: the best evening. And I was like so happy because
Speaker 1: like I would say that I managed to see all
Speaker 1: my friends, like all my friends in the area, because
Speaker 1: like when you grow up, like everyone take his own pet.
Speaker 1: And for me, it's a bit sad because in the
Speaker 1: keyboards you used to be like everybody together all the time.
Speaker 1: So for me, like to have this time with my
Speaker 1: friends that are super special for me, and so I
Speaker 1: was very happy. Me and I me it was just
Speaker 1: went to sleep, we say hello to my parents, and
Speaker 1: I would say it like to grow up with Gaza envelope.
Speaker 1: It's not easy like it sounds sometimes because I really remember,
Speaker 1: like in the sixth of October when me and I
Speaker 1: meet was going to sleep in my parents' house. I
Speaker 1: was looking like like out side from my home, like
Speaker 1: outside to our guardian and our phone door, because you
Speaker 1: never feel like safe in your home, I will.
Speaker 3: Say after the break, I don't recounts the harrowing events
Speaker 3: that she experienced on October seventh.
Speaker 1: In the seventh of October and six thirty in the morning,
Speaker 1: we wake up to a siren in the Keybucine we
Speaker 1: have a siren that she is like. You can hear it,
Speaker 1: and it's like seva a doom, severa adome like a
Speaker 1: woman that's just like telling it in the speatures of
Speaker 1: the keyboats. And when you hear this severa adam, you
Speaker 1: know that you need to run to the sheltered room.
Speaker 1: And we call it mamad it's a shelter, a safe
Speaker 1: from inside my home that the government build after two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. So my mom wakes me and I
Speaker 1: meet and tell us then need we need to run
Speaker 1: there with Seva doom And I was like whatever doom
Speaker 1: Like it's like it's it's in the morning, but okay,
Speaker 1: this is what they will in. You can't be I
Speaker 1: will say indifferent. I think too the sevadom. You can't
Speaker 1: stay in your vent because you don't know if the
Speaker 1: missiles will hit in your home, but if it will
Speaker 1: be in the set phone, it will be okay. So
Speaker 1: we run into the cell phone. We stayed there for
Speaker 1: a few moments and they will say okay, let's go
Speaker 1: back to sleep because everything is okay. It's just another
Speaker 1: regular morning in keybout Ray. I mean to living so
Speaker 1: close to a organization and then I remember that my
Speaker 1: friend texted me like, EDN, come overside, let's see the
Speaker 1: missiles in the air, because it's a crazy thing that
Speaker 1: we do. We can we see the missiles from the
Speaker 1: keyboutte because you can actually see them from going out
Speaker 1: from Gaza because we're super close to them. So even
Speaker 1: if you don't have the siren Sevadom, you still can
Speaker 1: hear the missiles that going maybe to another key team.
Speaker 1: But after the third time, we say, okay, so maybe
Speaker 1: let's open the the sofa in the same phone. Maybe
Speaker 1: we go to sleep there. And then we heard like
Speaker 1: a crazy like sounds of misses of like we heard
Speaker 1: something different, but for us it was like, okay, maybe
Speaker 1: like Hammas went crazy this morning. Maybe instead of shooting
Speaker 1: one missiles, maybe they want to shoot one hundred missiles.
Speaker 1: But okay, like they are unexpected. And I remember that
Speaker 1: when me and my father and a mead sat on
Speaker 1: the couch because we said, okay, apparently we're not going
Speaker 1: to back to sleep today, so let's open the TV
Speaker 1: seven am in the morning, let's make some breakfast. And
Speaker 1: me and my father and a meat was sitting on
Speaker 1: the couch opened the TV on the news channel. And
Speaker 1: the first video that we saw, it's a pickup truck
Speaker 1: inside the road. It's a city that is like fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes by car for me, full with Hamas terrorists. You
Speaker 1: can see the green bandage on the heath and so
Speaker 1: you understand it's Hamas shooting from the up track inside
Speaker 1: the world. For me, like to seeing this video is
Speaker 1: like to sing my worst my worst nightmare come alive
Speaker 1: because except of my mom told me like when you
Speaker 1: will go up, it will not be army. She told
Speaker 1: me all of my life, everything is okay, then like
Speaker 1: this will not happen. We are like safe here, like
Speaker 1: no way that Hamas or the people I will say
Speaker 1: will hate us I don't want to say other people
Speaker 1: and will come and try to murder us. And so
Speaker 1: this is like my worst nightmare come alive, like in
Speaker 1: the TV in seven am in the morning and they
Speaker 1: are now here. From the right side of the keyboards,
Speaker 1: we have the it was the Nova Music Festival. So
Speaker 1: we're starting to hear these crazy noises from the boat side.
Speaker 1: But we don't understand what happened because in the news
Speaker 1: nothing is reported and the community, what's the book, nothing
Speaker 1: is as written by the chief, So we say, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe it's okay, maybe the idea of found the seven
Speaker 1: pickup truck. But as the minutes passing by, the shooting
Speaker 1: is starting to be more heavier and more heavier, and
Speaker 1: the missiles alarm doesn't stop. So we're starting to understand
Speaker 1: that this is starting to get closer and closer to
Speaker 1: my key boots, and we didn't understand the number. We
Speaker 1: didn't understand what happened in the nova because there is
Speaker 1: like such a big confusion, and I would think that
Speaker 1: the first time that we understand that Hamas invaded to
Speaker 1: my key boots, because we know that Hamas invaded to
Speaker 1: as well, but we didn't understand that invaded to my
Speaker 1: key boots until eight twenty four in the morning.
Speaker 3: Adn't received the message and the community is WhatsApp that
Speaker 3: Hermas was inside the kabbots.
Speaker 1: So for us to see this like three message, it
Speaker 1: was like the waking up call for us because until
Speaker 1: that point we didn't believe that they couldn't succeed so
Speaker 1: much harmas they could actually enter to the.
Speaker 3: Keyboots, unable to lock the safe room.
Speaker 1: Because the cell phone is supposed to protect you from
Speaker 1: missiles and sometimes the missiles making a fire, so you
Speaker 1: need to be able to go outside from the safe phone,
Speaker 1: so you can't lock yourself inside.
Speaker 3: So her father suggested they go hide in the attic.
Speaker 1: So my father bring the letter, and me and my
Speaker 1: mother and Amit was climbing the letter and stayed up,
Speaker 1: and my father decided to stay down. I think that
Speaker 1: my father was over estimated himself and he was thinking
Speaker 1: that maybe he could confront them, maybe he can awarn
Speaker 1: us to let us know what happened down because our
Speaker 1: eyes was blinded because from that point, the service wasn't
Speaker 1: so good. In the keyboutine. The only pieces of information
Speaker 1: was from the watterpoop and we didn't have so much
Speaker 1: a good reception. So my father was kind of our eyes.
Speaker 1: But I don't know why he decided to stay down.
Speaker 1: Maybe he was thinking that he would take the first
Speaker 1: bullet or something like this, or maybe he could protect us,
Speaker 1: because he's like he was like the lion that protected
Speaker 1: his family. So me and my mom and Amite was
Speaker 1: sitting inside the attic. And it's crazy because I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe how I experienced this second Holocaust because I was studying,
Speaker 1: So I was studying, so much about the Holocaust and
Speaker 1: about the history of my family. But then I will say,
Speaker 1: the Holocaust find me. I just celebrated twenty eight and
Speaker 1: I'm sitting on the attic with my boyfriend and with
Speaker 1: my mom and just starting to realize that my life
Speaker 1: is going to be over and that they're going to
Speaker 1: murder me. And this time I knew that they come
Speaker 1: to murder me, and I was like starting to I
Speaker 1: would say, to conclude my not conclude my life, but
Speaker 1: to summerize my life, to think about my dreams, the
Speaker 1: thing that I was like succeed to accomplish, the thing
Speaker 1: that I that I will not accomplish until until forever.
Speaker 1: And looking on my boyfriend eyes and just like to
Speaker 1: sitting in the Holocaust and really liked to feel like
Speaker 1: Anna Frank it was it was something.
Speaker 3: Different contemplating life. She couldn't bear the thought that she
Speaker 3: or her father would have to die just steps away
Speaker 3: from each other, if.
Speaker 1: That would be my last moment on the sort in
Speaker 1: the keyboats, I wanted to spend them with my father,
Speaker 1: and so we decided to jump from the attic. We
Speaker 1: didn't have the time to bring a letter because in
Speaker 1: that point in Saturday, we're starting to hear the shooting
Speaker 1: really closest to my neighborhood.
Speaker 3: Ada in a meet and her mom ran to the
Speaker 3: safe room and reunited with their father, and we.
Speaker 1: Sat in the safe room, and we heard a knock
Speaker 1: on the back door, and we knew that we were
Speaker 1: next because our neighbors told us that now they're shooting
Speaker 1: in the home and they can hear Arabic, and our
Speaker 1: neighbors from the front write us that they are now
Speaker 1: starting to feel smoke and we're starting to be choking
Speaker 1: inside the safe rom so we understand that they are
Speaker 1: now burning my own family house. So we knew that
Speaker 1: we are next, and we knew that we are alone
Speaker 1: now only asking God. So we heard a knock on
Speaker 1: the front on the back door, and then we heard
Speaker 1: a second knock on the front door. So my father
Speaker 1: and Amit was going to hold the door because it
Speaker 1: was the only only option to prevent him from letting in,
Speaker 1: and we didn't think about the possibility of that maybe
Speaker 1: he will shoot on the door and we will be murdered,
Speaker 1: with thinking to okay, let's hold the door and we
Speaker 1: will be safe like this. So I remember that a
Speaker 1: meeting and my father going to hold the door, and
Speaker 1: then we heard a shooting a shot, and he actually
Speaker 1: was shutting shooting on the door on the front door.
Speaker 1: And by this it was just like going in and
Speaker 1: we heard him actually like walk inside my home. It's
Speaker 1: crazy because I felt so hopeless and I was starting
Speaker 1: to see and my father meanwhile he was like holding
Speaker 1: the door. I saw my father saying like goodbye for
Speaker 1: my mom. And my mom and my father have like
Speaker 1: a love for the fairy tales. I would say they
Speaker 1: are like maybe thirty six years by now and they
Speaker 1: are like in love like teenagers. So to saying my
Speaker 1: father is like saying goodbye for my mom. I think
Speaker 1: it was the most time we say hard part because
Speaker 1: I would say that if my father feeling hopeless now,
Speaker 1: so there is no hope. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we saw the doorknob going down and up, so you
Speaker 1: understand that he understand that we are in the safe phone.
Speaker 1: And now we try to open the door, and my
Speaker 1: father in a mid to try resisting and resist him
Speaker 1: and like preventing from letting him. But we didn't swim,
Speaker 1: We didn't do nothing. We just like say okay, maybe
Speaker 1: we'll keep quiet and like fright on the door and
Speaker 1: maybe we'll he will give up. And then maybe after
Speaker 1: five minutes or so, we didn't sew the door moving,
Speaker 1: so we think it to ourselves. Okay, maybe he he
Speaker 1: just raists for a little bit. Maybe he going to
Speaker 1: call his friends and now they will try to open
Speaker 1: the door together. Maybe he climbing the letter and hide
Speaker 1: us in the attic inside my parents' bedroom and wait
Speaker 1: for the moment that me and my family will pop
Speaker 1: out from them a moth from the safe poom and
Speaker 1: just shoot us. So we was just like being I
Speaker 1: will say on our guards like admit, and my father
Speaker 1: didn't hold the door for two hours or so because
Speaker 1: we couldn't imagine that he would just give up, because
Speaker 1: we couldn't understand that we will have this luck, because
Speaker 1: actually he was walking inside my home. He was trying
Speaker 1: to find I spanned us, so why he was letting go.
Speaker 3: The silence was palpable. They had gone, but they didn't
Speaker 3: dare move. They stayed in the safe room for another
Speaker 3: twenty seven hours, terrified and desperate for survival.
Speaker 1: So he kept being like that in the in the
Speaker 1: safe room, without food, without without water, and we have
Speaker 1: our restroom was a little bucket of the food of
Speaker 1: my dog. But I'm thinking about this now. It's okay,
Speaker 1: because when you want to survive, you lose humanity. Every
Speaker 1: day you just lose it. So only in eleven in
Speaker 1: the morning the day after after we did it, we
Speaker 1: didn't eat, we didn't sleep, like me and I meet
Speaker 1: was like kind of they would say, the protectors of
Speaker 1: my parents and my own family, because we are the
Speaker 1: youngest ones. So we we knew that this is our
Speaker 1: responsibility to be awake all the night and just to
Speaker 1: watch on the door. So me and I meet was
Speaker 1: just like doing a change our position each time, like
Speaker 1: I was holding the door, a meetside was in the phone,
Speaker 1: try to get any information from the WhatsApp, and we're switching.
Speaker 1: And we didn't slept all the night. So only in
Speaker 1: eleven in the morning the day after the chap of
Speaker 1: the keyboots tell us that it's now safe for us
Speaker 1: to go out of the keyboots and that we need
Speaker 1: to evacuate it ourselves now to take a small suitcase
Speaker 1: and just to drove. And I remember that. You really
Speaker 1: want to think that maybe it was like a bid
Speaker 1: nightmare or something like this, but to go out from
Speaker 1: the kyboot and to see all this burnt car of
Speaker 1: the people, of the young adults. It was celebrating the
Speaker 1: Nova party. And just to see their cars like along
Speaker 1: the road with all the bodies of the young adult
Speaker 1: was celebrating the Nova. I couldn't deny it. I know
Speaker 1: it is not It wasn't a nightmare. It was actually
Speaker 1: the seventh of October.
Speaker 2: Dozens of Israelis are dead, hundreds are injured, and Amass
Speaker 2: claimed to have taken hostages bringing them back to the
Speaker 2: Gaza Strip.
Speaker 3: It's been one horror and tragedy after the next since
Speaker 3: amas Is killing and kidnapping attack of Israelis ten weeks ago.
Speaker 4: The rampaging militants attacked homes with hand grenades, RPGs and gunfire.
Speaker 4: Then they set them a blaze, hoping to smoke out
Speaker 4: families hiding inside. Many were burned alive.
Speaker 1: It's like a horror movie. To me, it was the
Speaker 1: scariest thing that's ever happened in my life.
Speaker 3: In the days after, as you started to learn more news,
Speaker 3: what did you learn.
Speaker 1: I learned that I don't know if I'm answering, but
Speaker 1: I learned that I was so lucky because By the
Speaker 1: days going by, you're starting to understand the numbers. And
Speaker 1: I'm leaving five minutes back car from Kibbutz Perry. It's
Speaker 1: less than two miles, I think, so to starting to
Speaker 1: understand what happened in kibutz Bery.
Speaker 3: Kibbutz Berry was massacred. A mass roamed through the small
Speaker 3: farming village until the evening of October eighth and killed
Speaker 3: over one hundred citizens. Thirty two hostages were taken from Berry.
Speaker 3: The damage to the small village can still be seen
Speaker 3: to this day.
Speaker 1: Now my friends, our orphan or did have friends that
Speaker 1: they are now losing their brother to starting to understand
Speaker 1: what happened in Keyboots near us that now our bellyhood
Speaker 1: a friend of mine from the times that back then
Speaker 1: I used to dance in ballet class, so that our
Speaker 1: belly is now kidnapp hostages in Gaza. I couldn't understand,
Speaker 1: like how we survived. So I meet parents living fast sabah.
Speaker 1: But all the people of the Keyboots can They went
Speaker 1: to a lat because we knew it. Like the idea
Speaker 1: of to us that we need to leave the Gaza
Speaker 1: envelope now because it's a closed army area, so now
Speaker 1: everybody needed to leave their homes. When we drove, we
Speaker 1: said that the twenty minutes in the start of this
Speaker 1: ride was the most hardest because we just saw, we
Speaker 1: saw everything. We just saw what happened in October seven.
Speaker 1: We saw the pickup of armas, we saw the weapon,
Speaker 1: we opened the news and finally we saw the bodies.
Speaker 1: We saw all the fire still going on in the
Speaker 1: Kibutine because Ramas destroyed so many houses. So I think
Speaker 1: not like the first twenty minutes was we say the
Speaker 1: hardest part of the driving to amit parents' house.
Speaker 3: I mean when and how did you get back to
Speaker 3: some version of a normal life.
Speaker 1: So in the start, I was with my family in
Speaker 1: the hotel in a lot for three months, around three
Speaker 1: or two months. And for the start it was healing
Speaker 1: for me because I needed to be with people who
Speaker 1: went through the same thing that I was bent through.
Speaker 1: So for me to be with my friends because friends
Speaker 1: as family. For me to be with my friends in
Speaker 1: a lot in the hotel and just to sit with
Speaker 1: them each night, just to talk and to be with
Speaker 1: people that actually understand what I've been through, it was
Speaker 1: essential essential for me. But then after maybe one month
Speaker 1: and half, I'm feeling that I'm still in shiva, you know,
Speaker 1: like shiva that you're sitting and you just like seven
Speaker 1: days about the one who lost. And I think that
Speaker 1: for me to sit in shiva for one month and
Speaker 1: a half, it was too much already because I couldn't
Speaker 1: recover from the trauma because each day I was like
Speaker 1: speaking about about what happened and talking about what happened
Speaker 1: in the keyboats, and each day we heard about another
Speaker 1: person that idea for discovered that he was murdering in
Speaker 1: the seventh of October. So I knew that I need
Speaker 1: to start recover the trauma. So for me, I was
Speaker 1: going back to tell I was starting to go back
Speaker 1: to my work in November, I think, but to go
Speaker 1: to the university I was startying, I think only in
Speaker 1: December because I couldn't I wouldn't be I was not
Speaker 1: able to sit in the classroom. But for me, like
Speaker 1: I would say, it was after the one month and
Speaker 1: a half it I was in a lat it was
Speaker 1: essential to be with people that was not being through
Speaker 1: what I've been through in October seven because I needed
Speaker 1: to do something else to help me recovered and not
Speaker 1: just to diving inside the trauma.
Speaker 3: And still you've decided to share your story with others.
Speaker 3: What made you make that decision? I mean, I can
Speaker 3: see that it's hard for you to retell it. It
Speaker 3: wasn't very long ago, and I think it'll probably say
Speaker 3: with you for a long time, maybe forever. Like what
Speaker 3: made you decide to start sharing it?
Speaker 1: I think that the first reason is because I mentioned
Speaker 1: that I was traveling in South America. I met a
Speaker 1: lot of friends from Europe and from the world, and
Speaker 1: after October seven, I felt that people not seeing the
Speaker 1: right image. So I felt it I must go in
Speaker 1: to share my story from my eyes, from a woman
Speaker 1: that grew up in Gaza, envelope, from a woman that
Speaker 1: experienced seventh of October inside of home, because I needed
Speaker 1: to tell the truth because somehow people believe to this nonsense.
Speaker 1: And I think that the second because I think that's
Speaker 1: to go up and does the envelope make me super strong?
Speaker 1: And not many things try to I will say, to
Speaker 1: touch me or to excited me. So I started to
Speaker 1: feel like a like that I have this kind of shield,
Speaker 1: this kind of wall. I knew that if I will
Speaker 1: start to speak about my trauma, it will help me
Speaker 1: to feel It will help me to connect to the
Speaker 1: trauma and not to put a wall between me and
Speaker 1: what happened and just let me experience this, because when
Speaker 1: you grow up and envelope and when you grow up
Speaker 1: next to the organization, you used to put a wall
Speaker 1: and you try to be the strongest and the strongest
Speaker 1: as you can. But this time, I was thinking that
Speaker 1: if I will share what happened in Octorous seven, it
Speaker 1: will help me feel more and help me to connect
Speaker 1: more to this trauma, and maybe if I will connect
Speaker 1: to the trauma, I will starting to heal from it.
Speaker 3: Has that happened?
Speaker 1: I think yes, I think it really helped me because
Speaker 1: even now when I speak with you, I'm starting to
Speaker 1: remind in a few things that I didn't I was
Speaker 1: thinking about him until now, about the letter about people
Speaker 1: that was happening, about things that happened inside the mamad.
Speaker 1: So each time when I'm speaking about this trauma, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about many miracles that happened on Saturday. So it's
Speaker 1: helped me to understand, and it's helped me too. I
Speaker 1: will say, to take this trauma more close to me,
Speaker 1: I will say, because sometimes when you look on trauma,
Speaker 1: you look about a trauma of other person. But now
Speaker 1: I'm starting to understand this isn't my trauma. It's happened
Speaker 1: to me, not happened to other person. Because when you
Speaker 1: experience this I will say, life changing events, it's really
Speaker 1: hard to understand that it's happened to you, not or
Speaker 1: your friends or something like this.
Speaker 3: So on this show we talk about how these things
Speaker 3: that happen outside of us, like these experiences that we
Speaker 3: go through, change our perspective, like the way that we
Speaker 3: see the world, and then they change our actions as
Speaker 3: a result. So how do you think your perspective has changed,
Speaker 3: and do you think it's changed what you may do
Speaker 3: with your life.
Speaker 1: When I was like, I would say that I'm towards myself.
Speaker 1: I'm really judgment judgmental, And my teacher, I would say,
Speaker 1: in the office of school told me, and then you
Speaker 1: don't need to be a you don't need the enemies.
Speaker 1: You are the own enemy of yourself. And it's funny
Speaker 1: because she knew me only three months, but she could
Speaker 1: really like see through me because I would said it
Speaker 1: as a I don't want to say as a woman,
Speaker 1: but as a as a human being. I'm a super
Speaker 1: judgmental towards myself, and I was like judging myself by
Speaker 1: how I'm looking like on my appearance, what is like
Speaker 1: my successful how I success to doing this, how I
Speaker 1: managed to accomplish, to accomplish that mission of myself, Like
Speaker 1: all of my life was judging myself and telling myself
Speaker 1: and then you're not good in this, You're not good
Speaker 1: in debt. And I'm feeling that not only meetinging like
Speaker 1: this like many people thinking and just I would say
Speaker 1: living their life by quick and to have so much,
Speaker 1: I would say judge and criticism to them to themselves.
Speaker 1: So when I was actually sitting inside the ethic, I
Speaker 1: was thinking to myself like like why I was so
Speaker 1: bad to myself? Like why I decided to live until
Speaker 1: now without peace between myself and I needed to to
Speaker 1: start to do a piece inside of me and starting
Speaker 1: to see the good in life and not to judge
Speaker 1: myself in the thing that I don't accomplish. And I
Speaker 1: need to be proud in myself. I need to proud
Speaker 1: in in the in my personality in edin because I
Speaker 1: spend so much time in my life to think that
Speaker 1: I'm not good enough, that I need to be better,
Speaker 1: and I was promised to myself that if I will
Speaker 1: survive it, I was starting to do a change because
Speaker 1: I'm twenty eight and it's not young, it's not old,
Speaker 1: it's in the middle. So I have this I will say,
Speaker 1: a good battle. But I have this battle now inside
Speaker 1: myself because I know that I need to do this change,
Speaker 1: because I feel so lucky that I will survived October
Speaker 1: seven because so many people wasn't survived and I got
Speaker 1: a second chance to try to live my life and
Speaker 1: try to be proud of myself. And I tell them
Speaker 1: to myself that I'm too much old for this, I'm
Speaker 1: too much old for that. And then cha, I shift
Speaker 1: the way I'm looking now on my life, and I
Speaker 1: said to myself, Okay, I'm only twenty eight and I
Speaker 1: have so much to accomplience from now. So from that point,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to do this process with myself to first
Speaker 1: to take everything in proportion. I would say it helped
Speaker 1: me to get a perspective when you're in my life.
Speaker 1: It's helped me to understand that the life is short
Speaker 1: and if I want to do something or to accomplish something,
Speaker 1: I need to do it, and that I need to
Speaker 1: start believing in myself, to love in myself because by
Speaker 1: experience October seven, I believe that I can do whatever
Speaker 1: I want because by being in such I would say,
Speaker 1: a hard moment in my life to really feel the
Speaker 1: debt and to be in in that moment that you're
Speaker 1: starting to memorize your life and you think about like
Speaker 1: the good thing that you made, the bad thing that
Speaker 1: you made. You're really starting from the bottom. So I
Speaker 1: think from going through this more focused to my future.
Speaker 1: I'm more focused and I know that everything is achievable
Speaker 1: by working hard, by loving yourself, by believing yourself. And
Speaker 1: it's just like make me thinking about my life because
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time of my life to
Speaker 1: think that I'm not, that I'm not good enough, that
Speaker 1: I'm not I would says as a child that grow up,
Speaker 1: you don't think that you're sometimes beautiful and you so
Speaker 1: just I was like thinking, like looking about my past,
Speaker 1: and I'm telling to myself that I need to stop
Speaker 1: bringing me down, that I need to be the best
Speaker 1: cheerleader of myself, that I need to be the best
Speaker 1: believer on myself, not my mom. I'm saying that, like
Speaker 1: I'm going from the end to the start. Now by
Speaker 1: starting to do this, we say changing my perspective and life.
Speaker 1: And I know it's not easy. Sometimes I'm still struggling sometimes,
Speaker 1: like many times, I'm still have a lot of criticism
Speaker 1: on myself and about decision that I made. But I
Speaker 1: try to do more peace with myself and to breed
Speaker 1: into it. And I know to do a change in
Speaker 1: your life is not easy. And I'm twenty eight, so
Speaker 1: I was establishing. I was I established myself until now,
Speaker 1: so to do this change it's hard, but I can
Speaker 1: do it. And so I'm like, one step at a time,
Speaker 1: I will be more peaceful with myself.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: First, I want to say thank you for you and
Speaker 1: letting me to hear my voice and to speak about myself.
Speaker 1: It makes me really excited and really emotional that you
Speaker 1: let me to share my story in this platform. So
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Emily, and to all I will
Speaker 1: say the woman that hear me out right now, all
Speaker 1: the Jewish women that's feeling for me right now, like
Speaker 1: believe in yourself and just thinking how awesome are you?
Speaker 1: There is nothing that is too far.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Thank you so much. Emily Eden
Speaker 3: has returned back to Israel and is trying to resume
Speaker 3: her normal life, though nothing seems normal anymore. I want
Speaker 3: to thank Eden for sharing her deeply personal story with us.
Speaker 3: I feel lucky to be able to share stories like
Speaker 3: hers on my platform. Take care and talk to you
Speaker 3: next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of she Pivots.
Speaker 3: If you made it this far, you're a true pivoter,
Speaker 3: so thanks for being part of this community. I hope
Speaker 3: you enjoyed this episode, and if you did leave us
Speaker 3: a rating, please be nice and tell your friends about us.
Speaker 3: To learn more about our guests, follow us on Instagram
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