Haunted by October 7, Kibbutz Holit tries to rebuild in a temporary new location

KIBBUTZ REVIVIM — The sounds of hammers and drills shattered the late Sunday afternoon silence in the Negev desert as men on ladders attached wooden pergolas to a row of newly built houses on Kibbutz Revivim.

Outside one, Dudu Turjeman was filling plant pots with flowers and soil.

His wife Jude appeared with a plate of meat-filled pastries, attracting Muli Spector, a neighbor from across the street, and Libi Sherman with her nearly three-year-old daughter Kesem from next door.

Still moving in, the next thing on Dudu’s to-do list (other than making a perfect cappuccino for this reporter) was to assemble a computer chair with his son Ofek.

By nightfall, all manner of neighbors showed up to sit at the Turjemans’ outdoor table.

“It’s Jude’s parliament,” quipped one of those present.

Kibbutz Revivim is another stop on a long road for Jude, Dudu, and their two children. Over three years ago, they gravitated from Beersheba to Kibbutz Kissufim, close to the Gaza border in southern Israel. After two years there, they relocated to Kibbutz Holit, a small community nestled in the corner carved by the borders of the Gaza Strip and the Egyptian Sinai.

Jude, 43, a photographer, built a studio and bought a food truck. Her dream was to combine the two: bring families into nature, feed and photograph them. She and Dudu had already taken the truck to a few events nearby.

But just a year into the Turjemans’ stay at Holit, Hamas terrorists stormed the Gaza border area, massacring 1,200 people and abducting 251 to the coastal enclave.

The Turjemans hid in their protected room. On three occasions, Dudu managed to prevent Hamas gunmen from opening the door. Then came the fumes and smoke as the terrorists set the house on fire.

“That’s when I started to take my leave of Dudu,” Jude recalled. Miraculously, they survived. Most of their property didn’t.

All of her photography and cooking equipment was destroyed, along with 20 years of photographs on computer storage disks and most of the contents of the house.

“It’s as if they took part of my body,” she said.

The Shermans had moved from a trailer into a house in Holit only two months before October 7. They, too, sheltered in their protected room, with toddler Kesem and two children from husband Arik’s previous marriage.

“We were in one of the first houses the terrorists entered,” said Libi. “When I reported that a grenade had exploded in the house, people on the kibbutz thought I was imagining things.”

Out of some 200 people who had made Holit their home, 15 were murdered on October 7 last year. Two Bedouin Israelis working in the cowshed were kidnapped.

Seeking temporary shelter

Most of the community was evacuated to a hotel at Kibbutz Ein Gedi on the shore of the Dead Sea. Others — such as the Shermans, who spent nine month with family in Boca Raton, Florida — made other arrangements.

In August, 115 people started moving into temporary accommodation next to Kibbutz Revivim, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) southeast of Holit, surrounded by little other than sand. Others are still living in an apartment building in Rehovot, central Israel.

The Holit complex is separate from Kibbutz Revivim, although the new residents use Revivim’s grocery store and some activities are conducted in partnership.

Personal belongings add individuality to rows of new houses that look the same apart from size — a barbecue here, a motorbike there, children’s scooters and toys scattered around, wooden benches, outdoor tables and chairs. The smaller houses are prefabricated; the bigger ones are permanent, measuring 100 square meters (1,076 square feet). These will eventually house members of Kibbutz Revivim.

Yoav Bokai the manager of Kibbutz Holit though he’s a member of Kibbutz Bror Hayil, over an hour’s drive north. He invited this reporter into the office building in Revivim, where most of the furniture was still wrapped in plastic.

Asked how many members would return to Kibbutz Holit, he said, “We’re not at the stage of asking people. There are lots of unknowns. What will the security situation be, the physical conditions? There are 14 homes to demolish, and all the others need repair.”

Holit is a privatized kibbutz, more like a community settlement, where members are responsible for their own income but congregate for events such as Jewish holidays and celebrations.

On October 7, the community showed its strength and neighbors helped each other while under fire.

Bokai said the current focus was on providing individual and group therapy as well as cultural and other activities to enhance the sense of community, helping people find jobs, and ensuring that the children’s education was going smoothly. The members are also starting to discuss how the kibbutz houses and public buildings should be rebuilt, and how to attract new members. Improvements to Holit would include modern protected spaces, paving the road along the perimeter fence, and installing security cameras, he said.

Funding comes from the state and private donations, but the latter are becoming harder to attract, Bokai said. That might change now that the Minneapolis Jewish Federation has adopted Holit through the Jewish Agency’s post-October 7 Communities2Gether twinning project.

The decision to relocate — or not

The move-in date for the temporary housing at Kibbutz Revivim shifted from May to August, but residents are still arriving.

“The place is one huge building site; the public buildings aren’t ready yet, and workers are still inside the buildings all the time,” said Bokai. “Everything is delayed, the paths aren’t laid, there’s dust because they haven’t put down lawns yet. But to the state’s credit, they have really invested.”

The community is supposed to return to Holit next summer, but nobody believes this will happen. The rebuilding and repair of the kibbutz has not even begun.

One Holit resident, Shachar Givon, 36, has refused to move to his allotted caravan at Revivim. Single, he was at his parents’ home in northern Israel on October 7. He moved with the Holit community to Ein Gedi but hated it. In February, he returned to Holit, still a closed military zone, where he joined the security coordinator, one resident, and a young man restoring and maintaining the landscaping.

Emphasizing that he represented nobody but himself, Givon told The Times of Israel by telephone that too many kibbutz members were waiting for the state to help them rather than pushing the state to act more quickly and taking responsibility for their own lives.

They needed to visit Holit more, help with the cleanup, and plan for the future because the longer they stayed away, the harder it would be to return.

He added, “It’s not enough to get up in the morning and say how bad things are. You must say, ‘What can I do for myself and my community.’ I don’t believe in the state’s ability. For a year, the state hasn’t shown me that it can do anything. I believe in my own two hands. And four people can’t carry an entire kibbutz forward.”

Nightmares forgotten by morning

Back at “Jude’s parliament” this week, the conversation ranged from jokes and chatter with the toddlers who wandered in and out to stories about ongoing fears. These are sparked by anything from the sounds of military exercises at a nearby army base or airplanes flying overhead to Arabic spoken by local Bedouin.

Libi Sherman recalled being overcome by terror when she heard Arabic during her first outing to the southern city of Beersheba since October 7. Others had similar tales.

Gideon Kobani, at his new home on a break before returning to work at the Israel Electric Corporation, moved in with his wife and 11-year-old son Yotam just after the Sukkot holiday.

On October 7 last year, Kobani’s wife and son were in their protected room while he was outside, facing the terrorists and trying to save lives.

He visits Holit frequently, giving tours to visitors. “My favorite armchair, my Archie Bunker chair, my quiet place, is still there. I haven’t found my quiet corner here yet,” he said.

He is woken every night by dreams about that fateful Saturday, he said.  His son Yotam screams in his sleep. “Fortunately, he’s forgotten all about it by the time he wakes up.”

Kobani said the events had screwed everyone up but also glued them together. In his case, they had rekindled post-traumatic stress disorder caused originally by his military service.

“I give tours of Holit, and I lecture about what happened,” Kobani said. “They [experts] say it will help me.”