Those who know us are aware that we have gone somewhere with our two now-grown children since they went away to college. The trips worked out well as we spent five days or more together touring whatever venue to which we had chosen to travel. After the Beautiful Wife and I returned from Antarctica last year (without them), we started planning our joint trip for 2025 Thanksgiving. I stepped in and asserted “We are going to Israel.” We had all been there a few times, but never all four together. In addition, with what had been going on we needed to support the Israeli tourism economy. Everyone was delighted to go to a place we all loved.
The Beautiful Wife jumped into planning the trip. We consulted some Israel experts with whom we have long-time relationships and blended their suggestions into a plan. I showed it to one long-time Israel fan who stated the plan was “very ambitious.” We were going to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, of course, but it was the other spots that were broadening our horizons. After all, we had all been to Masada — going again is always welcome — but we were going to other spots in Israel we had not been before. Additionally, we were going to Petra, the last of the seven modern wonders of the world for me to experience. Israel has endless historical places for people of all faiths.
After many provided advice of where to go, we had a few recommendations of tour guides to hire for the Israel portion once we left our initial destination of Tel Aviv. We finally decided on the guide recommended by our friends, the Prager’s (yes, Dennis). They led us to Aryeh Leifert who works as senior editor for PragerU. He is an American who made Aliyah years ago and runs Israel Insider Tours. On top of it, he is a Rabbi. We believe we struck gold. Not only is he extremely knowledgeable about the sites we planned (he advised us also on the plan), he offered lessons in Judaism, plus he does a dead-on impression of Donald Trump that he could launch into at any moment.
We spent our first day touring the areas that had been attacked on October 7th. That was a principal impetus for our trip, and we felt compelled to see what had been done. We first went to the site of the Sderot police station. This is where a large group of terrorists attacked the town police station killing 20 police officers (53 people in total) and taking over the station.
The terrorists were finally defeated by Israeli snipers, forces from the elite Yamam counter-terrorism unit and an IDF helicopter. A bulldozer had to be brought in to destroy the building and eliminate the final 26 terrorists.
The memorial tells a moving story of not only the brave police officers but local residents who were randomly murdered by the terrorists. We were beginning to get a feel for what occurred that fateful day.
To get a breadth of understanding of the destruction done on October 7th, we were taken to what has become known as The Car Wall. That is in a community established as a kibbitz known as Tkuma. Cars that were destroyed during the sneak attack on the residents in the area were taken there. Burnt out cars that were destroyed in the attack and other vehicles that were inoperable — Israeli and terrorist vehicles alike. One sees a long, tall pile of burnt-out vehicles and a sea of cars planted in a parking lot of dead cars. It is estimated there are 1,600 vehicles in what has now become a memorial to the murderous attack done on October 7th.
The prime site to visit to gain a full understanding of the horror is the now notorious Nova Music Festival. It was described to us that when the attack was planned the terrorists had no idea the event was occurring and where it was to be located.
The Supernova Sukkot Gathering became the site of the greatest number of murders with 378 killed by the terrorists (344 ordinary citizens) and 44 innocents were taken hostage. The festival stage stands as a memorial to the dead along with stanchions with a photo and story of each of the young adults who had gone to the festival to share music and good times with friends and others and ended up butchered by the killers. It is virtually impossible to walk among the tributes to the dead without breaking into tears and thinking how barbaric the people were who committed this atrocity.
This day of death caused a killing of many in Gaza who partook in this diabolic attack. Many have died on both sides of this war. Gaza now lies in virtual ruin. Apparently, the perpetrators did not understand when the Jews said, “never again,” we meant Never Again.