Remembering October 7 in MetroWest
The community comes together to grieve — and move forward
Sometimes time moves oddly — sometimes at double or triple time, sometimes so slowly that you can pack hours of living, thinking, doing, and surviving into an hour or so. And when that happens, you can save lives.
That’s the basis of the harrowing story that David Boltiansky told the barely breathing, utterly silent audience at the October 7 commemoration at Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills that marked the first anniversary of Hamas’s berserker attack.
David and his family lived in Kfar Aza, one of the kibbutzim hardest hit by the terrorists. He didn’t grow up there, but five years ago he and his wife, Hila, decided that it would be a good place to raise their three kids. He knew that security would be complicated, as he put it — it’s very close to the border with Gaza — but its beauty, its values, its access to nature, and its close-knit community convinced them to make the move.
The family lived happily there. The children flourished. Last October 3, his parents had come from Netanya to celebrate Simchat Torah with them.
On the morning of October 7, David reported, he woke up peacefully at 6:15, to blissful silence. But 15 minutes later, he heard unusual sounds. Not the rocket attack he’s used to. Something far more repetitive. Something far more foreboding. He and his family went to the safe room immediately, as always, but he did not feel safe.
He paid attention to how much time was passing. “Four minutes,” he told the audience. “Five minutes. I tried not to panic. Six minutes. Seven minutes.”
He listened closely, put together the information he was hearing, and realized that he was listening to the sounds of gunmen from Gaza.
“Sitting right in front of me was my eldest daughter,” he said. “She’s 14. She is wonderful, beautiful and smart. Somehow I got a vison that they will make us watch them torture her.
“For me those were moments of real horror. I felt I understood their plan — to come and murder all of us while we’re trapped in the safe room, taking cover from the Kassam rockets.
“This made me flip from horror to rage and anger.”
Somehow that anger propelled him to action. He told his family that they were leaving. Right then. Just like that.
They “opened the door into a war,” he said.
The family — the four adults and three kids — raced into their two cars. “The goal was that at least one of the cars would make it out safely, and some of us would survive,” David said.
Somehow, amazingly, miraculously, it worked. They all made it out.
There was a glitch — and it says something wonderful about the family, and maybe about the culture that nourishes them.
David drove one car, Hila the other. He was in front; when he looked in his mirror, she wasn’t there. He panicked.
But soon she reappeared. She’d realized that their neighbors were away, but their dog was in the house. She drove into a part of the kibbutz that Hamas was attacking, and somehow managed to leave with the dog.
They had to drive through horror. There were gunmen on the road. It is extraordinary that they survived, but they did. Eventually, when they were out of danger, “I went to an Aroma café to have a panic attack that I had been keeping inside me,” David said. And it’s important that he said that. We have to realize that despite their superhuman courage, which led to their amazing escape, David, Hila, their kids, and his parents all are regular people. Just like the rest of us.
It was 7:30 in the morning. The family’s escape took an hour. David and Hila spent the rest of that nightmare day reading their kibbutz group text, as their friends in their safe rooms were murdered. Hamas slaughtered 64 people in Kfar Aza and took 19 hostages from there. Some are still imprisoned somewhere in Gaza.
The Boltiansky family is living on another kibbutz now. It’s temporary. They’ll have to move. They don’t know where they’ll go next, or where home is.
David does know that he’s dealing with trauma. Telling his story helps him heal, he said. “I hold onto the hope that by sharing my story and other stories, we can collectively build a future where we live in Israel with strength, resilience, and peace, shaping a reality where our children can grow up in safety and unity.”
Nearly 3,000 people were at B’nai Jeshurun to listen to David and the other speakers. There were many elected officials, including Lieutenant Governor Tahesha Way, Attorney General Matt Platkin, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Dist. 11), Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Dist. 7), Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Dist. 10), Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Dist. 5); many local officials, and many MetroWest rabbis and leaders from other religious traditions, in a show of interfaith support. The evening was organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest, in partnership with 85 local synagogues, schools, agencies, and other Jewish organizations.
The evening’s co-chairs were Daniella and Ben Hoffer and Deborah and Gregg Jacob.
Speakers included the federation’s president, Michael Goldberg, and its interim CEO, Steven Levy.
Nine empty chairs sat on B’nai Jeshurun’s bimah; they represented the victims of October 7, the hostages taken that day, and the IDF soldiers who have died since October 7 defending their country.
Noam Buskila, who is an IDF paratrooper and now a reservist — and also a cantor and a popular Israeli singer — sang four songs. One was “Oseh Shalom,” whose words, set to a beloved melody, come from the end of the Kaddish, and are a plea for peace — “May the One who creates peace in the heavens bring peace to us and to all of Israel. And we say: Amen.” Noam asked the crowd to sing “Oseh Shalom” with him, and to stand and hug each other. Many did, and they found comfort in it.
He also blew a shofar, as a nod to the Yamim Noraim and also as a call to action.
Joe Gindi, a student at Rutgers, followed David Boltiansky on stage. He talked about the antisemitism he and other Jewish students have encountered on campus, and ended on a note of defiant hope.
“For 3,000 years they said the end of Israel was coming or has already come,” he said. “Well, for 3,000 years we have not only survived, we have outlasted all of them.
“We will outlast this moment.”
That, it seemed, is a sentiment that everyone at the service shared.
comments