Chilling version of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Who By Fire’ mourns Oct. 7 victims

As families mourn loved ones killed in the Hamas massacres of October 7, Leonard Cohen’s “Who By Fire” has been given new lyrics in memory of the 1,200 people murdered in southern Israel and especially one victim, Naomi Dgani.

Dgani was a retired nurse who grew up in Kibbutz Kfar Blum in the north, and settled in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, adjacent to Gaza, in the 1960s.

Dgani’s family members — her cousin Vered Raz, and Raz’s husband and daughter, Tzachi Gatzek and Gali Gatzek — put together this new version of “Who By Fire” for the people of the Gaza border area where 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists carried out their murderous atrocities and abducted 240 people to Gaza.

“Tzachi wrote the words,” said Raz, describing her husband as “a high-tech guy” and amateur musician from Ramat Hasharon who was heartbroken, “like all of us,” by what happened on October 7.

“Who is left in Be’eri?” sing the father-and-daughter pair — and who in Nir Oz, Sderot, Ofakim, Zikim and Mefalsim, the Erez checkpoint and Ein Hashlosha, the local moshav communities, Nir Yitzhak, Kissufim, Kfar Aza and the field shelters where dozens of Supernova party goers tried to hide, Nirim, and the Sderot police station that was destroyed in the fierce battle on that day.

“Who will have mercy on us?” sing the Gatzeks. “Who will protect us?”

Cohen’s original song harkens to the Yom Kippur liturgical prayer “Unetane Tokef,” and as Gatzek wrote on social media, he kept thinking about the song, which has “been sitting like a lump” in his throat since October 8.

Cohen wrote his version of “Who By Fire” after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when he came to Israel and played for IDF troops.

Gatzek was familiar with the liturgical prayer and with Leonard Cohen’s music, but didn’t know that Cohen’s version was inspired by the Yom Kippur prayer and the 1973 war.

He wrote his version while mourning his wife’s cousin, Naomi Dgani, along with all the other victims.

“It’s the personal and the national,” said his wife, Raz.

This new version is “emotional but chilling,” said Anat Dgani, the eldest daughter of Naomi Dgani.

“I live in this region, so I’m living this through all the communities that I know, not just my parents’ kibbutz,” said Anat Dgani.

Her mother, in whose memory the new lyrics were written, was a nurse throughout her professional life — first working for the kibbutz, and then with preemies at Beersheba’s Soroka Medical Center until her retirement.

Her husband died less than a year ago. He was part of the original group that founded the kibbutz; Naomi first went to Kfar Aza as part of her National Service after high school and was then recruited to return as the kibbutz nurse.

The pair married and had four children, two of whom — Anat Dgani and her sister — live in two other Gaza border communities.

Anat’s father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s five years ago and died last June. Naomi Dgani, 80, had “just started to live life again,” said her daughter Anat, participating in Feldenkreis and Pilates classes and learning how to color mandalas.

She was killed in her home by terrorists, her body discovered two days later and then only buried two weeks later.