“It’s all of our responsibilities to make things better”
Personal words of loss and survival in war came to Edmonton this month as two female survivors of the Hamas-led October 7 attack on the Nova festival and Israel’s border with Gaza shared their accounts.
“My son-in-law held onto the handle of the safe room with one hand and had his pistol in the other,” said Marcus, in the city last week meeting with community members, including those from the Jewish Federation of Edmonton.
“It was a whole day just trying to stay quiet, stay safe, but we knew that there was a battle raging right outside the door. We were hearing shooting the whole time, and we were constantly trying to make sure the babies didn’t make a sound,” said Marcus, manager of the Sdot Negev Resilience Centre Clinic where she is a therapist and author of a children’s book to help those living near the Gaza Strip cope.
Over the sounds of bullets, Marcus, a mother of four and grandmother of three, counseled patients on the phone.
After 30 hours, they finally ventured out, only to find other kibbutz members injured, missing, or killed.
Stevie Marcus went to check the kibbutz milking parlor and he discovered 22 Thai and Nepalese workers had been massacred, and two more were missing.
Cows had been shot, and chicken houses with thousands of fowl had been set on fire.
“Then it was all about surviving and coping. And I personally went about setting up these resilient centers all over the country, together with my team and the two other women that I work with who were also evacuated,” Marcus said.
One of her sons sought news of a good friend, a Canadian from Vancouver, who had been at the Nova party, and two others — all killed in the attack.
Her husband worked hard to set the dairy in order. Within two months he was dead from cardiac arrest.
Marcus’s clinic, one of many set up to help Israelis cope with life in a war zone, previously served 250 people a year.
“Since the seventh of October, that’s gone up to 2,700,” she said.
The focus has shifted to understanding what happened that day, and protecting themselves and their families.
“I can compare it to 9/11 — we really couldn’t take in just how much happened on that day. And here we are a year later. Now we have people re-traumatized as we get close to the seventh of October. It all comes back to them. Some of them are reliving it,” Marcus said.
Must be a way to peace
While she’s not a politician, and she doesn’t live in the political world, Marcus believes there must be a way to reach a peaceful resolution in the ongoing conflict.
“If Israel was able to make peace with Egypt and make peace with Jordan, there has to be a way that we can bring about peace here,” Marcus said.
“The Hamas would have known as soon as they entered Israel, as soon as they kidnapped hostages, that Israel can’t just let that go,” she said, adding it’s “painful” to see innocent Palestinians, including children, killed in the ensuing violence.
Moved to tears
Edmonton resident Jillian Horwitz is an active volunteer with local community organizations.
At a gathering last week, she was moved to tears by 23-year-old survivor Irene Shavit’s account of her fiancé’s selfless heroism when Hamas forces wedged a grenade into their safe room.
“(He) jumped on the grenade and he was killed, but he managed to save her,” Horwitz said.
Shavit was at her home with her fiancé, Netta Epstein, when terrorists infiltrated the kibbutz. The two spent the morning in the safe room sheltering before the terrorists got to them.
Horwitz also feels great sympathy for Palestinian families in Gaza who are caught in a net between Hamas forces and their targets.
“No person can look at the horrible devastation of Gaza and not feel sad and sorry and weep for the children who are maimed, who find themselves with their parents, trapped.
“(Hamas) have built their headquarters in tunnels underground, and on top of schools and hospitals. One weeps for the loss of life, especially the children,” she said.
The war has captured the attention of “the world” — but anti-Jewish sentiment has been stirred up, she said.
Horwitz had Jewish family members who perished under the thumb of the Nazis in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust.
Today, fears of rising anti-Semitic sentiment in modern-day Alberta occasionally prompt her to slip her Star of David pendant safely out of sight behind her neck.
“October 7 has, kind of, from the day after, become a tool for hatred and anger and irrationality of masses of people against Jews. We’re all confounded by it,” she said.