Jewish teen survivors of Florida attack use Israel trip to talk gun control

TEL AVIV — Unlike most young teens arriving in Israel for spring break, 14-year-old Eden Hebron didn’t spend her first day at the beach or returning to her favorite falafel spot.

Instead, on Friday, March 23, Hebron and her sister Maia, 18, along with 18-year-old Dani Tylim — all student survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida — shared their stories from that day at Tel Aviv’s March for Our Lives rally in front of the US Embassy.

Eden Hebron said watched her best friend, Alyssa Alhadeff, die in front of her, before running for her life.

The protest was one of more than 800 rallies taking place around the world on March 23 and 24 in response to the February 14 shooting in which a 19-year-old former student walked into the school building with an AR-15 and killed 17 — including five Jews.

Hebron and Tylim spoke with The Times of Israel about why they chose to channel the trauma of their experience into the fight for gun control, even while on vacation in Tel Aviv.

It was not the first time Tylim’s mother received news that a shooter was in her child’s school: She’d experienced a similar trauma with her two younger sons 19 years before.

Ahead of the Tel Aviv rally Friday, Dani Tylim told The Times of Israel that gun control is a global issue impacting all who value life. She said, though, that the tragedy had particularly galvanized the Jewish community to take a stand.

“This could have happened anywhere at anytime to any person, so I think that everyone is affected by this,” Tylim said.

But, she said, “There were five victims at our school who were a part of the Jewish community. They were one of us, and it’s our duty to speak for them.”

Speaking via telephone only minutes before her flight to Israel took off, Hebron told The Times of Israel that, “Honestly, at first I was grieving and very sad but… I don’t want anyone else to see the things that I saw, and I don’t want anyone to have to walk over dead bodies.

“I think we really need to see an end to this and I’m willing to fight and do whatever it takes so that no one has to fight and feel the way that we feel,” she said.

‘This is only a drill’

Hebron has long caramel hair and a soft youthful face that seems sadly incongruous with the horrifying words coming out of her mouth.

Taking the stage at the Tel Aviv rally, the young advocate speaks thoughtfully and calmly as she recalls the day a bullet hit her best friend,  leaving her dead on the floor of their English classroom. The way Hebron retells the nightmare gives one the sense that she has now told this story many times over the last month.

“We were in English I Honors and I was sitting beside my good friend, Alyssa Alhadeff. There we were sitting and exchanging remarks about how bored we were in class,” Hebron said.

“We hear a noise but I refused to believe that there was a shooter at my school in Parkland, Florida. With less than a minute to process what was going on, some run to the wall and I decide to run under the table, next to my teacher’s desk where Alyssa Alhadeff and Alaina Petty were peering out.”

Hebron continues, “Sitting there I am thinking, ‘How did my nightmares get so vivid?’ As Alyssa sits there, while looking at her I am thinking, ‘This is a drill. We will be back to normal soon.’ But that is not what happened. Our door was shot through. I noticed glass in front of me. Nikolas Cruz is currently shooting my classmates.”

“Sitting five inches from Alyssa, I start to pray. Before I know it, she falls back and screams before going silent,” Hebron said.

In that classroom alone, Cruz murdered three and injured five.

“The sound of him shooting was one of those sounds that keeps repeating itself. One bullet after another. A semi-automatic rifle. I keep hearing more shots. I question if it will ever stop,” said Hebron.

“There we are, the kids in Ms. Hass’ class, still alive, looking at the bodies on the floor and desks. Then SWAT comes in and says, ‘If you are able to, get up and run.’ We run. And I see all of the bodies, in disbelief that this had happened in my safe Parkland community,” she said.

Hebron said that her voice is no longer her own but belongs to all of the victims of the shooting, including her best friend, Alhadeff.

Reliving the same nightmare

Tylim also spoke at the rally, beginning not with the recent shooting, but another one her family experienced years earlier when in August 1999, a neo-Nazi gunman entered the Los Angeles Jewish Community Center where Tylim’s brothers, then ages 3 and 9 were in summer camp. The shooting left five injured and one dead.

“My mom, after rushing to the scene, pregnant with me, not knowing whether she would ever see her children alive again, never fathomed that 18 years later, she would be reliving the same nightmare all over again,” Tylim said with a touch of anger.

“Never in my life had I ever imagined that I’d be texting her as I ran from the sound of gunfire coming from the building I was supposed to be in, had I not been making up a test from another building on campus that day,” she said. “Some of those victims were my classmates, five of them were a part of our Jewish community, your community.”

“One child every other day. That’s how many kids under the age of 12 have died from gunshots, both intentional and accidental since December 14, 2012, when a 20-year-old stormed into an elementary school in New Town, Connecticut and shot dead 20 elementary school children and six adult staff members,” Tylim told the crowd.

“What has changed in gun control legislation since the New Town, Connecticut shooting?” Tylim asked.

“Not enough. If something doesn’t change these tragedies will continue to happen. I am not willing to accept that,” she concluded.

From Parkland to Tel Aviv

Tylim and Hebron were in Israel to visit family over their school vacation, and were grateful they could still participate in the weekend’s protest though far from Washington, DC.

Tylim’s brother moved to Israel three years ago; Hebron’s father is Israeli and she often comes to Israel to visit family.

Tylim said Israel is a model for sensible gun control.

“If I’m in the US and someone is holding a gun, I get very scared and I don’t feel safe,” she told The Times of Israel. “But when I’m in Israel, and I’m sitting in a restaurant and someone walks in with a gun, I feel 100% safe.

“There’s training, soldiers are holding these guns and they know what they’re doing with them. But in Florida and in the US, it’s so easy for you to just walk in, and a mentally ill 19-year-old teenager can just get one. Israel has common sense gun laws,” Tylim said.

In Israel, gun owners must meet a long list of criteria to obtain a license, including ownership of only one gun at a time, and must even ask for permission to sell their gun. Roughly 40 percent of requests are rejected.

Marching forward, Hebron and Tylim said they are committed to continuing to use their stories as a catalyst for those around them — whether in Parkland or Tel Aviv — to advocate for gun control so that no other child must experience what they went through.

As Hebron said, “Our nation will keep fighting, marching and advocating for what every human being deserves; to live in a safe environment where we don’t have to worry that today will be our last.”