Gilad Segev and Project HEROES

I have spent over a year researching and writing a White Paper on the Impact of the Hamas Jihadist October 7, 2023 Massacre on American K-12 Curriculum. Two months ago, as I was completing it, I was asked if I would work on a project related to “the Massacre”. To be very honest, I did not know how much longer I could surround myself with or bury myself in the reality of October 7^th. But the title, Project HEROES, spoke to me and captured my imagination as did the name its creator, a musician named Gilad Segev who, I must admit, was totally unknown to me.

I was given links to segments of Project HEROES as well as a Trailer. I expected to see the horrors which I found daily on the television, in the newspapers, and in my research. I braced myself and prepared for an assault on my emotions, my mind, and my nerves, which were already shattered.

What I found was a brilliant, beautiful, breathtaking response to the horrors of this massacre which never ends.

Surprised, my first step was to familiarize myself with the creator of Project HEROES. To my delight, I found out that Gilad Segev is a well-known Israeli singer-songwriter, musician, author, and travel documentarian who has more than 20 years of experience in the music field and 6 albums to his credit. I learned that he burst onto the Israeli music scene in 2004 with his first single “Achshav Tov” (“It’s Good Now”), which he wrote in memory of his brother, who died a hero while fighting in the IDF. The song became a smash hit across the country, earning the title of the most broadcast song on Israeli radio that year. His brother’s death and his creation of a memorial to him were the beginning of Segev’s personal pursuit of how “the ordinary becomes extraordinary”.

As I studied the Project HEROES videos, I wondered about the essence of this man. Was there more to him than just this career? I wanted to know who he really is, how he developed, what formed him and what drives him. The answers to such questions are not generally found in simplistic factual articles. However, they are found in interviews and in conversations. The person who engaged me to do the work set up the first Zoom with Gilad Segev and I met him “face to face”. We started an on-going conversation which still continues today, by Zoom, by WhatsApp in writing and in conversation. It took no time for me to understand that this man is far more than “just” an Israeli singer-songwriter and musician.

Gilad Segev is genius whose talent, voice, intellect, and Soul saw and understood how to create a Project dedicated to Heroes and to inspiring HEROES in order to save the Jewish People and ultimately Humanity. He is a proud Israeli realist, who confronted the horrors of October 7^th, the death and the destruction, the Hamas-Israel War, the World’s anti-Israel reaction to the War, the unleashing of global anti-Semitism with its attacks on the Jewish People, the explosion of pro-Hamas violence, and unexplainable world-wide support for it, across universities and K-12 campuses. Gilad Segev watched, analyzed, and sought explanations and answers to what he saw.

Gilad Segev is a modern-day visionary, who made Discoveries among the death and chaos of October 7^th and created Project Heroes based on these Discoveries. What Discoveries” you ask. In his own words to me:

“We discovered:

The October 7th heroic acts.

The microcosm which they represent is not only for our Heroes but for all of our People as a People.

The impact of telling this story to our students and the world.

We therefore formed Project Heroes accordingly. Project Heroes is the story of the discovery of a truth which was always there, of things which needed to happen and for us to realize. I want the first association to the word Jewish to be Hero, as it should. We have been on the other path, of not acknowledging this truth, and that road doesn’t end well for us.”

The highly successful 2024 HEROES Commemoration Program and Concert Tour began as his personal response to the horrors of the October 7^th, 2023 Massacre. It became his message to the Jewish World that the Narrative of Jewish Victimization must end and must be replaced by that of Jewish Heroism. His target population was and remains Jewish Students and Jewish Communities. He worked tirelessly to bring forward the truth of the Massacre, not by presenting the horrors but by focusing on the many acts of individuals, who were targeted as victims but responded as heroes.  He developed the concept of the change of the Narrative by focusing on the amazing strength, spirituality and beauty of those would-be victims who were instead the spontaneous heroes of the October 7^th Massacre. Hundreds of meetings with individuals, involved in American and Israeli education, who were willing to discuss the needs of our Jewish Students and were open to the idea of partnership. Hundreds of hours expended on assembling a Team of talented, experienced individuals who understood the concept and were capable of developing and implementing the Project and the Program. It was completed and first performed in May 2024.

There is so much more to write about this miracle named Gilad Segev and I will write it in another article. To know Gilad Segev is a gift – not only to me but to the Jewish People and to Humanity.