Mourning what they lost but choosing life and rebuilding for today and generations to come  

Mourning what they lost but choosing life and rebuilding for today and generations to come  

Kibbutz Be’eri was founded as one of the historic “eleven points” remote outposts established at the close of Yom Kippur 1946, to create Jewish communities in the Negev Desert for the future state of Israel. There were no roads, no water, only rocks and sand. The region typically gets one-sixth the annual rainfall of Arizona deserts!

Over ensuing decades, pipelines carried freshwater from deep groundwater wells and Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) and later desalinated water from the Mediterranean; drainage basins and dams brought winter rainfall runoff to reservoirs; and more recent pipelines carry local and urban recycled water for agriculture. Today, desalinated water even replenishes the Kinneret!

Be’eri is home to 1,200 people and anchors the Eshkol Region. A printing and fintech company employs 600, while farmers raise cattle, potatoes, peanuts, mangoes, wheat, jojoba for oil and skin care products, and more.

For two decades, Be’eri and all other communities east of Gaza endured repeated and sometimes daily rocket, gunfire, firebomb and other attacks. People had 15 seconds to get to safety. The physical dangers and psychological trauma took their toll on humans and animals alike. Families slept in home bomb shelters/safe rooms to safeguard them from nighttime attacks.

On October 7, 2023, one day after its 77th birthday, the kibbutz was struck by Hamas terrorists and Gaza civilians, amid the most barbaric horrors inflicted on Jews since the Holocaust. More than 130 men, women and children were murdered; 32 were kidnapped. Twenty-one children lost one or both parents; 100 lost siblings or other close family members.

The incomprehensible atrocities led to brutal urban warfare, in which Hamas employed labyrinths of tunnels and........

© Townhall