Thanks to a partnership between the Friends of the Israel Defense Force and the Hewlett-East Rockaway Jewish Centre’s Israel Committee, temple members had the chance to attend “Survived to Tell: an Immersive Encounter with Israel’s Defenders” last week.
Attendees heard from three Israel Defense Forces reserve-duty soldiers and watched stories of survival from the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks retold through virtual reality at HERJC on Nov. 24.
The FIDF is a nonpolitical, nonmilitary organization that provides for the well-being of active IDF solders, veterans and family members. It was established in 1981 by a group of Holocaust survivors, and is the only organization authorized by the Israeli army to collect charitable donations for the IDF in the United States.
Tova Markowitz, an HERJC Israel Committee member, organized the event to show the community’s gratitude for the IDF.
“Through virtual reality and in-depth conversation, we’ll step into the shoes of soldiers and survivors of Oct. 7,” Markowitz said. “Lone Soldiers and reservists continue to defend Israel with courage, resilience and unwavering commitment. This is an act of remembrance and an act of solidarity.”
Markowitz said that coming together to support Israel and advocate for those who serve is an active reminder that Long Island residents voices matters.
“At HERJC, our Israel Committee lives by a simple phrase: ‘Israel is for everyone,’” she said. “Whether you’re a soldier, student, parent or simply a friend, Israel belongs to all of us.”
Through virtual-reality technology, attendees stepped inside IDF veterans’ stories of the attacks, seeing and hearing their testimonies of courage and resilience and their messages of hope.
Aviv Kurnas, North American regional director of Israel-IS, their innovative approach brings storytelling to the forefront, oversaw the V.R. portion of the evening, and facilitated the conversation afterward.
“lsrael-IS was established in 2017 by three IDF officers whose post-army travels exposed them to the rampant negative views about Israel,” according to Israel.Is.org.
“‘Survived to Tell’ started in Israel,” Kurnas said. “The idea was to bring stories of survivors to college campuses in the U.S., for them to be face to face and have a human connection with the subject of Oct. 7.”
The program features five stories of survival from Nova Festival survivors, hostages who returned home from captivity and IDF reservists.
“The idea is for them to have a face and story they can connect to,” Kurnas said of the viewers. “Today they are seeing the story of one of the civilians who drove down south and was fighting there for hours in very bad conditions without any weapons and his personal gun.”
Kurnas was in the U.S on Oct. 7, 2023, and he visited college campuses a few days later, where, he said, he was confronted by antisemitism.
“It was very clear that people do not understand the magnitude and the stories of what happened that day,” he said. “Israel-Is decided to develop this as a method of not only bringing a story, but making people be a part of it, and feeling like you’re on the ground that day.”
Kurnas said he wished he didn’t have to educate people, but added that when he sees empathy on their faces, that’s the main reason he does it.
“There’s no reason to be doing this,” he said. “I wish the world understood on its own. Everyone should learn one story, so in 50 years it won’t be like Holocaust survivors, but actually something that lives in us that we can share with the rest of the world.”
After experiencing the virtual reality, attendees listened as a panel of reserve soldiers told their stories of the attacks. The panelists included Hananel Levy, a law clerk in the Nassau County attorney’s office from West Hempstead, and Amit Yaacov.
Levy offered his opinion on adding a “disturbing content” warning to the V.R. experience due to the graphic nature of what is shown. “I wish we were able to get everyone that denies what happened to show them the truth,” he said. “Hamas had no problem videoing everything they did, and when you’re disseminated to the masses, you have to cater to the people that have the lower threshold of capability of retaining that information.”
Yaacov added that the V.R. experience was not made for a Jewish audience, but rather for college and high school students across the country.
“There is a limit to what you can show on video,” he said. “This is also a moral statement by not showing the horrors. We don’t need you to justify what we’re doing because this is what they did to us.”
Yaacov said that soldiers can bear it, because they witnessed it firsthand, but when they show it to students, there are versions with victims dying and without.
“In a way, Israel is fighting on eight fronts,” Levy said. “Seven of them are geopolitical, and the eighth is social or discursive. You’re getting to the heart of the matter with the V.R. experience.”
