Family releases album of raps composed by Oct. 7 hero Aner Shapiro

Family and friends of Aner Shapiro, the heroic, unarmed, off-duty soldier who was killed protecting a crowded roadside shelter near the Nova music festival during the Hamas onslaught on October 7, 2023, launched a posthumous album of his rap songs Thursday night.

Standing on the makeshift stage in a garage in Jerusalem’s Talpiot industrial zone were Aner’s parents, Moshe and Shira Shapiro, along with survivors of the migunit, the roadside bomb shelter where Shapiro, his best friend Hersh Goldberg-Polin and 27 others crowded into that morning, before they realized the extent of the Hamas onslaught.

The survivors onstage included recently released hostages Or Levy and Eliya Cohen and Ziv Aboud, Eliya’s longtime girlfriend, one of the survivors of that same roadside shelter attack.

Kobi Ohel, the father of hostage Alon Ohel — who was taken captive with Or, Eliya and Hersh, and is still held hostage in Gaza — was also present, along with Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, Hersh’s parents.

The family released “Headstart,” the final song of the album at the event, a song that Aner produced at the end of high school.

It’s a song that refers to Aner’s group of friends, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and the video includes a clip of Hersh and his sisters on a trip, listening to the song, and singing along with Aner.

Yaniv Netzer, a close friend of Aner and Hersh, posted that the release of Aner’s album, “Neri,” as he calls him, is “the first step in life after death, a kind of reincarnation of a soul.”

Aner Shapiro lived hip hop, represented art and his beloved city of Jerusalem, wrote Netzer. People won’t get to know him, but they will get to hear “the polished rapper from Jerusalem.”

Musician Roy Rieck worked with the Shapiros on some of the songs for the album, and wrote about it on social media, adding that the final video clip consists of a multitude of illustrations that Aner left in his notebooks, from childhood through October 7.

“It’s a short clip, but it will stay with me forever,” he wrote. “I don’t know how much it will speak to a wide audience, but I tried to make something that would be Aner’s entire world.”

“I was forced, with heartache but also with editorial joy, to select them, and to grieve and celebrate Aner’s explosive, complex and, unfortunately, prophetic creativity over and over again,” Rieck added.

“If we die, at least they’ll say that we took a dream and tried to conquer it,” sang Aner just before he ended the song in tribute to his close childhood friends: Yaniv, Roy, Gilad, and the late Hersh.

“Hopefully they’re now flying through it together at full volume where the universe doesn’t allow it,” wrote Rieck.

Aner Shapiro, left, and Hersh Goldberg-Polin, best friends who went to the Nova rave on October 7, 2023. Shapiro was killed trying to protect others in a field shelter, Goldberg-Polin was killed in captivity in August 2024 (Courtesy)

Shapiro and Goldberg-Polin, close friends from childhood, were at the Nova desert rave on October 7 when Hamas terrorists attacked the party.

Shapiro, a sergeant in the Nahal Brigade, was on break from the army during the holiday week. As the terrorist attacks began, Shapiro and his friends fled the scene, and he was dispatched by his team commander to a nearby army base, but he never made it that far.

The group of friends ran to a field shelter and found 24 other people crowded into the small space as the terrorists were shooting all around them.

Shapiro stood in the opening of the shelter, took charge and calmed people down. As the terrorists threw grenades toward the shelter, he caught them and threw them back.

He caught a total of seven grenades before he was blown up and killed. The terrorists then entered the shelter, shot and killed some of those hiding inside and kidnapped several others, including Goldberg-Polin, whose right arm had been blown off from the elbow down.

Shapiro’s heroism helped save 10 people.

His family said that they want others to get to know and remember their son, the musician, rapper, artist, “lover of people and of righteousness, a fighter for social justice, a philosopher with an open heart and curious eyes.”