Andrew Guckes | Staff Writer
Hadassah Ben Ari had tried but struggled to translate the gravity of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre on Israel by Hamas to her seven children. It was when she finally broke through to them that she had an epiphany.
“I didn’t see the spark in their eyes,” she said. “One week after the war broke out, I asked them, ‘Do you want to hear a good story, a heroic story from the war?’ And I told them the story of Rachel Edry.”
Edry ran the canteen at an army base in the Gaza envelope. Her and her husband’s house was raided by terrorists on Oct. 7. Despite the danger, Edry spoke to her captors in Arabic, offered them food and convinced them that she was a harmless old woman while simultaneously aiding IDF forces with information. That information helped a counterterrorism unit take out the terrorists and save the Edrys. She has since become an icon in Israel.
When Ben Ari’s children heard this story, they lit up.
“Their eyes got bigger and bigger. They smiled. They got emotional. At that moment, I was finally able to ground their understanding,” she said. “I told them that from now on, I would tell them one heroic story a day, and that I was also going to write a book because I love to think big.”
That is how “The Heroes of October 7th: Heroic Stories for Children,” was born. Since then, Ben Ari has been embraced by Jewish parents around the world, as her book helps many break the ice on an uncomfortable topic.
“Children know. They know,” she said. “They also know what the Pharaoh did to Jewish babies in Egypt. What Haman wanted to do to the Jewish people. Some already know stories about the Holocaust. So I think it’s better that we take the responsibility and decide which stories we want to tell and how.”
Kohelet Yeshiva in Merion Station heard about this message through a mutual connection and decided that it was one that would appeal to their students. While the school teaches children K-12, Kohelet Yeshiva decided to have Ben Ari speak to the middle and high school students in late February.
Kohelet Yeshiva High School Associate Principal Rabbi Aaron Horn was thrilled with the message and the reaction.
“They were focused. They were listening. They came over and they asked questions. Afterwards, they took the bumper stickers and the magnets and other giveaways. There are plenty of reasons why they would not want to think about Oct. 7 in between history and Chumash class. But here they are doing it anyway, and giving it their full attention,” he said.
While the book is designed to be palatable to the youngest Jews, the stories it tells are thrilling to every age. At the assembly at Kohelet Yeshiva, Ben Ari told of a soldier who volunteered time and time again for the most dangerous missions, eventually dying in combat. He said that he continued to put himself at risk because he could think of no better way to die than to die by defending the land of Israel.
The book includes an entry on a soldier who said, counterintuitively, that he loves to come back from the front lines to see people living their lives as if nothing is happening. The soldier says that the reason he and his peers fight is so this very scene can occur.
There are also stories of school principals, first aid respondents and social media influencers all using their roles for good in the wake of the terror attacks.
“There were some really powerful messages that she spoke about,” Horn said. “Part of the reason why this book is built as a book for younger readers is the narrative tells us about [how] Israel should be [a place] of self empowerment and self actualization, [with] the ability to defend ourselves against the worst humankind has to offer. Those are the narratives that we should be telling ourselves, because they’re important.”
It was not easy to get all of these stories right, and to make sure that all of them were told in the same tone and with the same intensity.
“I gathered a group of 40 team members, writers, editors, psychologists, translators to English and French, and we just started to write stories from this war about the dead and the survivors,” Ben Ari said.
At first, they were just using the internet to find stories. But as the smoke cleared, families became willing to tell their stories to Ben Ari and her team. Once they found out the mission of the 40-person team, they were all the more willing to help.
The lessons gleaned from this book apply across age groups and oceans. Ben Ari felt the need to go to Kohelet Yeshiva thanks to a close connection to someone involved with the school, and she said that she is beyond thankful for the reception the school community gave her. Moving forward, she will do more of this. After all, you never know who needs to hear it.
“Rachel Edry, she is a hero, but she was an everyday woman before this happened,” Ben Ari said.