Missing home: Kibbutz Kissufim commemorates October 7, one year on

During the three years I lived on Kibbutz Kissufim, I attended several annual memorial events, including Remembrance Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day. These commemorations were held either at the cemetery or in the grassy field outside the old dining hall at the center of Kissufim. In these moments, the kibbutz’s community assembled to pay tribute to the events and individuals no longer with them.

This year, the community of Kibbutz Kissufim commemorates the dark day of October 7 not on their beloved kibbutz, but as evacuees temporarily housed in Omer, near Beersheba. They gathered to remember 19 of their friends and family who were killed that day, along with 29 soldiers and security forces who fell while bravely defending Kissufim.

The community held three ceremonies to commemorate the October 7 massacre. Two took place on the memorial day itself within the kibbutz, and one on the night before, in Omer. The morning ceremony was attended by President Isaac Herzog and the families of Kissufim. Herzog spoke about bringing the hostages home and strengthening the kibbutz’s community.

While referring to Menuha Chulati, who was a grandmother and resident integral to the kibbutz’s development and among those commemorated on October 7, he said, “When you tell Menucha’s life story, I feel it resonates with an entire generation of pioneers who built this entire region here.”

“I pledge to everyone that we will continue to build, many residents will return, and we will bring peace and security to the area,” Herzog continued.

Another ceremony in the afternoon honored the fallen soldiers and security forces who defended Kissufim on October 7. Although I couldn’t attend these ceremonies on October 7 itself, I did participate in the community’s ceremony the evening before, held in their temporary new home in Omer.

Garin Tzabar at Kissufim

I lived in Kissufim for three years through a lone soldier program called Garin Tzabar, and for many of us, this place was our first and most formative home in Israel. Between 2013 and 2019, this community welcomed four cycles of groups of lone soldiers from the program, treating us as their own sons and daughters. Most of us remain connected to the place and its people, including our extraordinary program coordinator and caring host families. Several of us attended the ceremony.

Upon arriving at the event hall in Omer, I noticed a yellow chair at the entrance adorned with a picture of Shlomo Mansour, who, at 86, is the oldest hostage in Hamas’s captivity. He was abducted from his home on October 7. Mansour, who survived the Farhud massacre in Iraq as a child and immigrated with his family to Israel, is a husband, father, and grandfather, and a kind, smiling woodworker and handyman. During the ceremony, when speaking of Mansour, the kibbutz members said, “We are not speaking about him right now – we are speaking directly to him,” expressing their hope and longing for his return.

The ceremony paid tribute to kibbutz members killed on October 7 – people from all walks of life and nationalities who were united by their connection to Kissufim, which was their home. They include a grandmother who tended her garden with care, inseparable parents, caring sons, hardworking Thai workers, a father who sacrificed himself to save his children, and the head of the emergency standby squad who saved countless lives on October 7. Children, parents, grandparents, and friends were lost, each a universe unto themselves, enriching the lives of those around them. The kibbutz, a tight-knit community of 250 people, feels the absence and loss, and one year later, the gap remains.

A recurring theme in the ceremony and the ethos of Kissufim lies in its name, which means, “to miss,” or “to long for.”

This community resided on a beautiful and warm kibbutz in the western Negev, which faced darkness and destruction on October 7. They miss their home and continue to yearn for it, hope, and the return of their loved ones. Before singing “Hatikvah” at the end of the ceremony, two school children from Kissufim offered a prayer, saying, “L’shana haba’ah b’Kissufim ha-bnuya” (next year, in a rebuilt Kissufim.)