The weekend, run by Kesher Yehudi, brought secular survivors and religious Israelis to the David Citadel Hotel for an “authentic Shabbat experience” that included speakers discussing topics ranging from healing to the need for unity in Israel to spirituality. Despite the diversity of attendees, the weekend was marked by a sense of community and mutual connection. Many of the survivors had never before religiously experienced Shabbat. Many others were raised in a traditional home, and as with so many families in Israel, their relationship with religious Judaism is complicated.  Despite the diversity of attendees, a sense of community and mutual connection marked the weekend. 

BJL was invited to participate in this Kesher Yehudi event and walked to the hotel on Shabbat afternoon. Not being able to spend more time with the group, and of course, no Shabbos camera, so no photo essay, here is a summary with some of the multiple stories, each strong enough to stand on its own.

A moving ceremony in memory of those massacred at the Nova Festival opened the weekend. Many of the victims were friends of the attendees. The ceremony included prayers for the safe return of the hostages. 

“The media tells us we are separate, but we are not - we are one people,” said Kesher Yehudi founder Tzili Schneider in her welcoming remarks to the group. “This weekend we put everything aside - phones, work, the outside world - to focus on that which connects us. This Shabbat, we honor the memory of everyone who fell, those you lit candles for.  In our unity and holiness, we will become memorial candles that honor those murdered on October 7.”

The Shabbaton’s sponsor, Shmuel Yosef and Leah Rieder, spoke to the group by explaining why he and his wife not only sponsored the weekend but flew in to attend, along with their adult children and their families.

“We each have two souls,” he explained. “Our individual soul in our bodies, and our collective soul that we share as the Jewish people. We share our upper soul. We think about you. We feel connected to you. We want to show you and get to know and feel that connection by being here with you.”

Popular speaker Rabbi YY Jacobson, a prominent American teacher and author, spoke to the growing crowd of young adults. “You are the diamonds of Am Yisrael. I am here from abroad, and I want you to know that thousands of Jews ask about you regularly; they pray for you. Everyone has their individuality, but we are all one. Our enemies know this better than us. They don't look at differences in observance, dress, or anything. Just like Mengele in the Holocaust, they know that a Jew is a Jew. Our enemies know this, yet somehow, we forget. Our greatest power is loving one another.”

Singer Yonatan Razel gave a pre-Shabbat concert to get “into the spirit,” and Israeli group Mafteach Sol (Soul Key) joined him in singing a combination of his own music, traditional Kabbalat Shabbat, and other popular tunes. Throughout Shabbat, he sang with participants, choosing songs the Nova crowd would likely know. Razel explained the connection of his popular hit Katonti to his grandfather, a Holocaust survivor. “He went through such a terrible ordeal but at the end of his life, he said Katonti mikol hachasadim, and that’s how this song was born. He was telling us that each of us has a unique role to play out of our pain and trials.” 

Friday night was capped off with a walk through Jerusalem’s Old City to the Kotel for services, and to the hotel for an elegant Shabbat dinner, featuring inspirational words from actor Shuli Rand, his wife, actress Tzofit Grant. She openly spoke of her recovery from childhood trauma and of finding her way back from being “broken” as many survivors were in tears. “I had to learn that healing meant taking responsibility,” sharing a beautiful explanation of the Hebrew words within the word achrayut (responsibility). “It begins with aleph, for ani, which is me. It becomes ach, my family, those close to me; it then becomes acher, (other), which means taking responsibility for the world around me and what I surround myself with... All of that is included in the process of taking responsibility.”  

Most survivors did not want to speak about their October 7 ordeal or how they escaped, an experience still too raw and painful. “I know most of you don’t want to talk about what you went through. I know I didn’t,” Mrs. Grant said. “You don’t want to be pitied, and you don’t want to be patronized. I, and the people here, are not here for that. We are here to listen and to love, to be open,” she added.

Shabbat morning was filled with singing and dancing, as Nova survivors intermingled with Kesher Yehudi staff and volunteers, and slowly began to open up about their experiences and their reality today.  Almost all said they are “stuck and struggling.”  Aryeh said he is only alive because he eventually made his way to Kibbutz Saad. Because it is a religious kibbutz, the gates were locked for Shabbat so it was safe. “My father passed away during Corona, and I felt he was with me, protecting me, and my survival,” he said. 

Sisters Rivkah, Sarah, and Devorah survived - escaping separately. The youngest, only 19, agreed to speak about that fateful day. “There was no way any of us were prepared for what to do in a situation like this. You had nothing to rely on at all but your gut instinct. Your gut told you to hide and wait or run. Your gut said go left or go right… and if you listened to your gut and got it wrong, you were dead. That’s it. It’s that simple. We don’t know why we chose to stop when we did, run when we did, go left, or go right when we did. It means we are here today.”

The only way they could describe the day-to-day reality now was by saying “It’s hard.”  They cling to each other and to their circle of friends who also went to the festival, a closeness of shared trauma. They are each other’s second family and spend as much time together as possible.  

Elad said he has gone back to work but feels completely stuck. “It’s really complicated…I’m a bit of a robot…I am functioning, but…” His explanation was cut short when a Kesher Yehudi volunteer convinced him to join in the dancing. Within moments, he was standing on a chair, singing, and soon after, he was wearing a borrowed shtreimel, the traditional Hasidic fur hat. He danced in the men’s circle for nearly an hour, embracing the others with huge smiles and looking like anything but a robot. 

Rabbi YY Jacobson also spoke Shabbat afternoon about Joseph’s ordeal being sold into slavery and his acceptance that his difficult story was his personal “shlichut” or mission. He said living with faith means that we each have to find our path and reason for our challenges and pain, which are truly unique. He cited a study done on caterpillars who had their leader removed - and subsequently died, unable to find the food put out for them. “We have to be careful not just to follow others; each of us has to find our own path, our own voice.” 

Merav Berger, mother of hostage Agam Berger, held in Gaza for 269 days was an active part of the Shabbaton and spoke Shabbat afternoon. Merav had attended an earlier Kesher Yehudi Shabbaton for hostage families and has been very involved ever since. She spoke about Agam and her faith, about what she learned from freed hostages, and about her daughter’s insistence on holding on to her Jewish identity in captivity. Her primary aim, however, was to share her experience with Kesher Yehudi’s chavrusa program and how that blossomed into a deep friendship. She encouraged each Nova survivor to find a religious staff member or volunteer and get to know them. After her chavrusa, Margalit, introduced herself, Ms. Schneider explained that the Jewish learning they do together is meant to start a conversation, to help repair the scars of the Jewish people by choosing to get to know someone radically different than themselves.

“My learning partner is one of my best friends today,” Schneider explained. “I promise you that our religious volunteers learn as much as their secular learning partners. We are all part of one people with shades, not “sectors.” That is a myth. We just need to sit and openly invest in one person.” Participants were paired off, giving them a taste of the chavruta-style learning Kesher Yehudi offers as part of its regular programming. One emotional highlight was the introduction of a “special guest Holocaust survivor” brought by historian and speaker Rabbi Yisrael Goldwasser, who related the story of a Torah scroll smuggled into - and out of  - the Polish ghetto of Czestochowa. Hidden in a wooden bunk bed frame in the ghetto, more than 80 people would squeeze into a room meant for ten to hear the weekly Torah reading. Most of the ghetto residents were eventually taken to Treblinka. The Torah’s miraculous survival was due to the people - from religious to secular - who risked their lives to preserve it, said Rabbi Goldwasser.  “The Torah is ours to share, regardless of who we are,” he said, explaining that because the surviving Torah is so delicate, it never leaves the synagogue in Bnei Brak, where it is currently housed.  However, when he explained about the Shabbaton and its attendees, special permission to bring it was granted. The crowd danced with the Torah for over an hour, arm in arm, with the Nova survivors joining in, taking on a powerful life of its own.  

Yonatan Razel closed the Shabbat with a musical havdalah service that brought everyone together - including a crowd from the hotel itself - with no one wanting to leave. Participant Yosef Dadon jumped on stage at the close of Havdalah.  “Thank you for showing us the best side of religion - that which is open, listens, and welcomes us. It’s not obvious. It’s not a given that you would do any of this for us; a huge thank you from all of us.” 

"It's really hard to describe what happened this past Shabbat with Kesher Yehudi,” Razel said, summing up the weekend experience.  “At first glance, you feel like wow -  what different worlds. But once we got into Shabbat?  What heart, what a connection! When I was leaving I talked to so many people, and I felt they changed so much. Their hearts opened up, connected, and were so spiritual.”

Before leaving, Rabbi YY Jacobson told us: “It was an amazing Shabbos with Kesher Yehudi bringing together so many Jews from different backgrounds, and especially it was quite an intense demographic, survivors of the massacre at the Nova music festival on kaf bet Tishrei. It was incredible to meet so many of them, to dance with them, to farbrengen with them, to listen to them. It's really a very profound experience.  It is these types of activities that are creating a real change in the Jewish community in Israel and, hopefully, abroad. This is now an opportunity to build bridges that have never been built before. It really was an honor and privilege to be a part of it.” 

“We are not interested in “hit and run” programming -  this was only the beginning,” said Ms. Schneider in her final goodbyes to the group. “We will be back at work in the morning, matching every single participant here with a learning partner. This is about building relationships, getting people to know one another - those who never meet to sit and talk -  and to love each other.  There were so many beautiful moments this Shabbat, and it is our responsibility to build on those moments and follow through.” 

Kesher Yehudi is a social movement born in response to the rift tearing apart Israeli society. The organization’s vision is to unify Israeli society by empowering future generations to lead Israel with more understanding of the “other” and a greater connection to their Jewish legacy. Kesher Yehudi does so by connecting participants from secular and religious backgrounds through ongoing one-on-one study sessions exploring Jewish heritage, learning partner “chevruta” programs at military preparatory academies and through Shabbat and holiday experiences, and other special programming including support specifically for the families of the hostages. Participants from all sectors of Israeli society - religious, non-religious, and ultra-Orthodox - build long-term friendships based on mutual respect and understanding. Kesher Yehuda was a recipient of the prestigious Jerusalem Unity Prize in 2016.