We listened to a nurse, and mother of ten, who was at an army base on Black Shabbat, October 7th. Her husband was a rabbi on an army base in the south and was there to bring Simchat Torah to the soldiers. Instead she wound up tending to a soldier who was shot, and was tricked into thinking the other soldier who came to help was part of the IDF, but instead it was a Hamas terrorist, who shot the nurse in her back and arm. She used her head covering as a tourniquet. She shared her story with us when we visited Hadassah Hospital. We listened attentively to the woman who was on a crowded bus when a missile hit, but it was so crowded, no one could hear the sirens to warn them to go into a shelter. She had shrapnel in her leg, and was undergoing extensive physical therapy. But she was one of the lucky ones; better off than the murdered owners of the hundreds of cars we saw in a parking lot in Netivot; cars which were shot and demolished and burned. There were car seats and baby carriages in those cars, and I wondered, where are those children now? Are they orphans? Captive? Is someone saying Kaddish for them?

- Rabbi Ellen S. Wolintz-Fields, WLCJ Executive Director