Documenting October 7 for Posterity

When I first heard the horrific news from Israel on that fateful October 7^th day in 2023, my thoughts immediately turned to Chaim Nachman Bialik’s poem, “On the Slaughter” https://benyehuda.org/read/6243 https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3756415/chaim-nachman-bialik-on-the-slaughter-translation/, which he wrote in 1903 as a young journalist in Odessa when he heard about the 1903 pogroms occurring in Kishinev. Subsequently, after traveling to Kishinev for a first-hand look at the situation, Bialik wrote the epic poem, “City of Slaughter,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_City_of_Slaughter  https://benyehuda.org/read/1784 which inspired the Jews in Russia awaken to awaken from their passivity against antisemitic violence.

It had been years since I had looked at my tattered Hebrew volume of Bialik’s poetry which dates back to my Hebrew high school days decades ago. As I read my scribbled Hebrew notes in the margins, I thought how the poem, “On the Slaughter,” has remained in my consciousness for decades – and how today Bialik’s eloquent opening verses, “Heavens, have mercy on me…how long and until when, how much longer?” truly spoke to me upon viewing the disturbing images of the Hamas-led October 7 massacre in Israel, when more than 1200 Israelis were slaughtered and over 250 hostages taken to Gaza. At the same time, I wondered whether my then teenage self was truly able to picture and fully comprehend the full scope of the pogroms that had impacted Jews in Kishinev, thousands of miles away across the ocean from my home in America in the pre-Internet and digital age without video recordings and social media postings.

Indeed, no sooner had I learned about October 7 than my social media feed was flooded with the terrifying images of the death and destruction on the kibbutzim close to the Gaza border. Today the names of Nir Oz, Nachal Oz, Beeri, and the Nova music festival remain on the tip of my tongue as do those haunting digital postings.

It is now day 516 since the war with Hamas began,196 hostages have been released and 59 remain captive in Gaza, including an estimated 35 confirmed dead. And despite no personal connections with any of the hostages, through the Internet I have become connected to their personal stories. October 7 also remains on the Jewish communal agenda, at Jewish summer camps, day schools, and other institutions across the globe, including synagogues where prayers for the redemption of the captives are regularly recited during daily and Shabbat worship.

Tragedy is etched in our Jewish DNA. As our history has taught us, we must never forget. Annually we publicly remember the Holocaust with International Holocaust Day in January and Yom Ha-Shoah in the spring. The Holocaust is well documented at museums around the world. Archives include testimonies of Holocaust victims. Today a plethora of age-appropriate written literature — non-fiction as well as fictionalized accounts – teaches about the Holocaust to young and old, Jews and non-Jews alike, providing a written record of its atrocities.

I worry though what will happen when the last of the October 7 hostages finally are released, when digital images of their suffering no longer fill our digital screens, and when Israel tries to return to normalcy. Will October 7 disappear from our individual and collective consciousness?

Israeli newspaper reports (including those of the Times of Israel) have done excellent work documenting October 7 and its aftermath, with first-hand accounts of hostages about their experience in Gaza, their physical and emotional suffering, and the toll on their families. Dozens of essays about October 7 have been published, as well as dozens of poems published in Shiva: Poems of October, a Hebrew-English bilingual volume of poetry. Once the dust settles and all the hostages are home, I hope that victims and their families will contribute their written accounts of October 7 as an historical record for today’s readers and future generations.

Importantly, I fervently hope that written stories about October 7 will find a permanent, archival home. Just as we remember the Expulsion from Iberia, the Holocaust, and the Exodus from Arab Lands, I feel that is important that October 7 be included in the annals of our collective Jewish history for posterity. As for that worn volume of Bialik’s poetry, I shall treasure it forever.