The Beautiful, the Wise and the Humble

Avi the Beautiful Zakuto was always at the center of the action. On October seventh, he heard gunshots near his new house and rushed out to help

Today as well Avi the Beautiful Zakuto is dead. Or, when he wanted to be precise: “Avi the beautiful, the wise and the humble”. What’s astonishing, his daughter Adi says, is that the description, “as funny and ironic as it sounds, it is accurate”.

Avi was born to Regine and Shlomo in Istanbul, and when he was one they immigrated to Beersheba, where his siblings David and Keren were born. He studied at Ironi Dalet high school in the city, and in the army he served in the Signal Corps. “He was the heart of the unit. A professional and command authority”, wrote his commander Oren Anolik. And also: “Avi had this combination: women fell at his feet, and the men, instead of being jealous, were happy for him”.

After the army, he flew to South America. He left for five months and stayed three and a half years. Among other things, he managed a sawmill there. Imagine: A foreign guy in his early twenties with no management background and broken Spanish commanding a factory in the depths of the jungle. These are part of his adventures. “You know only one per cent of what he was”, a friend told his father after his death.

Adi Zakuto: “Everyone talks about that knock on the door. For us it was the ring on the intercom”

When he returned, he studied tourism management at Ben-Gurion University. He met his wife, Carmen, at a salsa class, and they always tore up the dance floor. A daughter Adi and a son Liad-Harel were born to them, and even after he divorced, family came first. Every phone call to Adi, a medical student, began with “What are our plans for today?” – Always in the plural.

He was a bookworm who got swept up in binge-watching or intense board games. He loved to devour life, and every project became his life’s mission. The project that excited him most was his encampment at Susita Beach on the Kineret, the Sea of Galilee. For fourteen years, twice a year, he set up tents at the same spot and hosted friends and even complete strangers there. His openness to every person was his hallmark. Osnat, who studied with him in high school and ran into him by chance after thirty years, eulogized him: “You helped me find work, made sure I could handle and overcome a challenging situation”.

In recent years, he managed the “Shufersal” supermarket branch in Ofakim, and October seventh was his first Sabbath alone in his new home in the city. At two minutes past seven in the morning, Avi Zakuto, fifty three years old, was still talking to his mother, and after that he didn’t answer anymore. Adi started calling: “The call would disconnect and I’d dial again, like that – two hundred times”. At the municipality they told her the house wasn’t on the terrorists’ path. In hindsight, it turned out that Avi, who was a volunteer medic on an ambulance, heard shots and ran to help. Terrorists who saw him shot him.

All day long the family tried to obtain information, to no avail. In the evening they gathered at Shlomo’s house. “Everyone talks about that knock on the door. For us it was the ring on the intercom”, Adi recounted in an interview with Shlomo. She remembers they stood in a semicircle, and she will never in her life forget the sentence: “Your father was murdered by terrorists. There was positive identification in the field. We don’t know where he is”.

The funeral was held on October tenth. During the Shiva, the seven days of mourning, Shlomo said to Adi and Liad: “Until now you were my grandchildren, and now you are my children”.

Months after the death of Avi the Beautiful, his family held a huge event at his encampment by the Sea of Galilee. On the T-shirts they distributed was printed: “Don’t mourn my leaving, celebrate my life”.

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I thought of Avi the Beautiful the first day I emerged from the shelter in my Tel Aviv home. Missiles had shaken my entire neighborhood in what felt like a game of Russian roulette with my family’s lives and my own – also known as Operation “Am Ke’Lavi”, the Israeli strike on Iran. That day in June, I began writing and posting the stories of civilian victims: Jews, Muslims, and migrant workers murdered in the massacre carried out by Hamas on October seventh, twenty twenty-three, whose only “crime” was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I believed then, and believe now, that one central objective of this military operation was to facilitate the changing of narrative about the events of October seventh and its aftermath, a goal many still pursue. Our mission is to continue remembering these forgotten victims and reminding others. Their stories are now presented here for English readers. A new story will be posted every week. Thanks for reading and sharing.