Our new role models: The best snapshots from JPost's special shoot

In 10 months of difficult editor’s notes, this feels like a new level.

How do we relay to you, our readers, why the Magazine is dedicating an entire special edition and months of planning to the subject “How we dress now”?

How do we make it 110% clear that by gathering freed hostages, Supernova music festival survivors, soldiers, and first responders to model the war-influenced wardrobe in this issue, we are showcasing Israel’s singular strength and not, God forbid, engaging in exploitation?

To us, they are so much more than “models.” They are Israel and the Jewish world’s new role models in the global fight for good against evil.

By cloaking these heroes in certain finery and photographing them at the Tower of David, we hope to express our immense awe and pride in what they have endured and continue to endure. Holding their heads high, out of the hostage garb forced on them in captivity, they shimmer and shine – conveying beauty and human splendor in Jerusalem’s fortress.

WE CHOSE August 1 for the photo shoot by chance. But since nothing is random, it was the 300th day of war, and 300 days of captivity for those held hostage since that terrible Shabbat.

Early that August morning, we learned about Israel’s alleged daring assassination of arch-terrorist Ismail Haniyeh. Given the already charged environment, it crossed my mind that the possible consequences could motivate many to drop out.

But, brave as ever, everyone – models, staff, volunteers, photographers – came out and gave their heart and soul.

We are incredibly humbled to have worked with them to make this effort a reality.

WHEN I took this Editor’s Notes photograph, I had hoped the 300 tape I was sporting would be redundant once we went to print.

Sadly, we are still at war, and we still must do everything in our power to bring our hostages home and protect our bravest.

We are a changed nation in every way, including in how we dress.  As we navigate the darkness of a post-Oct. 7 world, these pillars of decent society on our pages are lighting the path.

Mia Schem

Mia Schem, 22, was kidnapped from the Supernova festival along with her friend Elia Toledano (Toledano’s body was discovered by the IDF in December). Shot in the arm and held captive, Mia endured months of psychological torture at the hands of Hamas – locked in a room in a Gaza family’s house with a male guard surveilling her every move at all times. The wife of the family, jealous of her husband’s attention to the hostage, would periodically starve her.

Though forced in a Hamas-released propaganda video to follow a script and say she was receiving good medical care, in reality a Palestinian veterinarian operated on her wounded arm.

Released in a Qatar-negotiated hostage exchange deal in November, she has described her time in captivity as “hell,” frequently being told she wasn’t going home alive, and noting “there are no innocent civilians” in Gaza.

Since her release, Mia has been advocating for the hostages remaining in the Gaza Strip. She attended the State of the Union address in Washington on March 7 as a guest of House Speaker Mike Johnson, and met with US Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt and Israeli Ambassador Michael Herzog. Mia then attended Elton John’s Oscar party in Los Angeles in a white dress with yellow ribbon pin, reminding the world about the hostages still in captivity.

Iconic designer Alon Livne

Alon Livne burst onto the international fashion scene with an instant breakthrough at age 26, when a stylist for Beyoncé discovered him at a New York trade show.

“I was shocked,” recalled Livne, now 40. “It felt like a dream. It was the first time that an Israeli designer dressed an international celebrity, and Beyoncé is probably the biggest on Earth. Since then, I have worked with celebrities such as Lady Gaga, Kim K, Naomi Campbell, JLo, Katy Perry, Cardi B, Ariana Grande, Mariah Carey, and many more.”

He dressed Beyoncé for video clips, shows, and editorials. He was thrilled to meet and design clothes for his pop idols.

In addition to being a designer for the stars, Livne has made a name for himself by styling what may be the most iconic fashion to represent Oct. 7 – singer Eden Golan’s Eurovision 2024 dress.

“We started out with two dresses,” Livne explained. “We were given strict instructions. There were to be no symbols, signs, or even colors that could hint about the situation in Israel, even though at first we wanted to use yellow [for the hostages] or an Israeli symbol.”

Working with the stylist, Livne decided to create something more modest and make Golan look vulnerable. “She’s a pop star with purple hair and long nails, so we wanted to soften the look,” he said. “The first dress was an asymmetric corset of rope. But we felt the symbolism was too much. So I decided to make something very primal and simple. No finishing on the ends. I cut the silk with scissors and it was done, start to finish, in four hours.”

Hidden messages?

“People found symbols in the dress, even though all of it was totally unplanned,” he recalled. “They said she looked like a victim of the party; they saw the number ‘7’ in the way the silk was cut, but none of it was planned!

“The dress showed Eden in a different light, and it told the whole story of what is happening here in Israel in one dress. This one was so special and different.”

Livne, who has designed fashions for Eurovision before, said usually the designs are for a superstar. He designed panties and a bra for Noa Kirel, the Israeli singer who performed “Unicorn” at last year’s Eurovision contest. It was a Beyoncé style look, he said, and very different from his vision for Golan.

“Here, I was going for soft and quiet. We didn’t want to make her a sexy superstar. Just a young, vulnerable, and beautiful girl. Everyone brought their own feelings to the dress, and it evoked feelings in everyone.”

While Livne creates his own trends, he has noticed the military, olive green, and khaki looks in all the stores. “We are still very much in the middle of it all, so we can’t really know what tomorrow will be in Israel.”

Like many other Israeli designers, Livne’s strong suit is bridal couture. He said he has as many as 10 bridal meetings every day. A recent one was for Gali Segal, who lost a leg at the Supernova music festival and has a prosthetic.

“Her dream is to wear a dress with a slit, but suddenly she didn’t have a leg. She said maybe I could put the slit on the other side. Instead, I suggested that we put it on the prosthetic side and that she wear it with pride. And she agreed to do just that.”

Noam Ben David: Supernova survivor

Noam Ben David, 27, and David Newman, 26, met at a party and fell in love. When Noam attended the Supernova festival to work as a painter, her boyfriend accompanied her. Newman was among the 350 people murdered on that terrible day.

The couple had traveled the world together for seven months before the festival and had plans to rent a home together soon.

After Hamas gunmen infiltrated the festival, Noam hid in a dumpster, where she was shot in the hip. Noam, wounded, hid there – under David’s dead body – for over five hours with 16 others. She was one of only four who made it out alive.

Noam spent a month in Netanya’s Laniado Hospital. Despite walking again not being a given, she progressed from a wheelchair to walking with a cane, as she did at the photo shoot.

Noam described David as “a light to the world” and that he was “a hero.” She said she is here to continue bringing his light into the world, and that David taught her about “the joys of life.”

Beautiful inside and out

Noam Ben David met her boyfriend, David, while painting spontaneous portraits at a party. When the winsome artist and sometimes model and actress saw the handsome blond man on the dance floor with a friend on his shoulders, she went over to the dance floor, popped a candy in his mouth, and said, “I want to be on your shoulders next.”

He laughed and put her on his shoulders, and his enthusiasm was contagious. What should have been happily ever after, only lasted a year and a half – until Oct. 7.

At the Supernova festival when sirens rang out, the onstage music died, rockets flew through the air, Noam heard shooting, grenades, cars blowing up, and saw smoke everywhere – and in the chaos and upheaval, the couple ran for their lives. As they hid and prayed in a dumpster along with 15 others, Hamas gunmen shouting “Allahu akbar!” (“God is great”) shot into the dumpster, killing David and 12 others and shooting Noam in the hip as she quietly whispered the Shema Yisrael prayer and willed herself to stay still. She was one of only four hiding there who survived. Five to seven hours later, the IDF found the survivors in the dumpsters and rescued them, still battling terrorists while trying to get her medical help.

“He is still with me; always with me,” Noam confided, a glow of strength on her face, as she prepared for the Jerusalem Post photo shoot that would take her to the Tower of David. The venue, she said, was no coincidence. “He is my King David, and his light still shines in my heart.”

“I haven’t dressed up like this for a long time,” she admitted after the shoot. “I felt like David was with me the whole time. He was saying, ‘You’re beautiful, and you deserve to feel like a queen!’ I heard his voice shouting, ‘Hell, yeah, this is MY GIRL!’”

She saw David in the butterflies that flocked around her as she posed in Oshrat Mishal’s wedding dress commemorating IDF soldiers who fell in battle on Oct. 7. Butterflies have been following her, she said, ever since she met David. And they still do.

“I believe that everything happens for a reason,” she explained. “Even things that we perceive as bad turn out to be good in the end. It is up to us to finish our own stories.”

Although now she is walking with a crutch and is still in pain from her wounded hip, she said she plans to give her own story a happy ending.

Andrey Kozlov

Andrey Kozlov, 27, was working as a security guard at the Supernova festival when he was kidnapped to Gaza by Hamas on Oct. 7. During his eight months in captivity, he was transferred multiple times before being moved to an apartment in the Nuseirat refugee camp, where he was held for the duration.

His Hamas captors attempted to convert him to Islam, making him read the Koran every day. He endured both physical and psychological abuse. At one point, Kozlov was told that his captors would film a propaganda video, then murder him immediately after recording it. In October and November, during a severe food shortage, he barely ate.

Kozlov, along with three other Israeli hostages, were rescued on June 8 by Israeli Special Forces in the daring Operation Arnon – named after 36-year-old Chief Insp. Arnon Zmora from the elite Yamam counter-terrorism unit, who died a hero after coming under fire while leading the rescue team.

After the rescue, the hostages were taken to Sheba Medical Center outside Tel Aviv, where the IDF reported their medical condition was stable – and people in Israel and around the world rejoiced.

At Sheba, Kozlov was reunited with his family and girlfriend, Jennifer Master, who had waited eight long months for him after only a short time dating. He was shocked to learn how she had advocated for him through his 245 days in captivity, even helping his Russian mother learn Hebrew.

Or & Yagil Yaakov

Brothers Yagil and Or Yaakov, 13 and 17 years old, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, where they were visiting their father, Yair Yaakov, and his partner, Meirav Tal.

Home alone and awoken from sleep on that tragic day, Or tried to hold their sealed room’s door shut, but they were soon overtaken by Hamas gunmen. While they were kidnapped along with Meirav, their father’s fate was unknown; it was only in February they learned he had been murdered, with his body still being held in Gaza.

All were kept separately: Yagil was held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Or was held by Hamas in a tunnel, and Meirav was held elsewhere. It was only in the last few days before their release that Yagil, Or, and Meirav learned of each other’s survival.

While Or was in captivity ahead of his bar mitzvah, the owner of the store that had prepared his tefillin bag called his mother, Renana, in sympathy, offering to refund the purchase. “No, don’t give me the money,” she insisted. “Yagil will come home, and there will be a giant celebration, with God’s help.”

After 52 days in captivity, Yagil and Or were released in the fourth round of the hostage deal at the end of November. Meirav was released the next day.

Magen David Adom: On the front lines since Oct. 7

Orly Ben Simon is a paramedic in the Jordan River area, Kiryat Shmona station, and paramedic educator, as well as the mother of three IDF soldiers. She opted to stay in the North to help save lives. Orly was one of the paramedics who responded to the Hezbollah attack at Majdal Shams, in which 12 children were murdered and 30 others were wounded.

Dikla Ezra is a blood donor at Jerusalem’s MDA blood bank. Arriving at the MDA station on Oct. 7, she immediately helped to open and hold the first mass blood donation on that day, which lasted for many long hours. Dikla continues to donate blood, assist donors, and ensure that Israel’s blood supply is available.

Orianne Lucatz is a paramedic in the Sharon area and instructor at the MDA paramedic school, as well as the mother of two daughters. She says the task of training paramedics is important to her in these days of fighting, and she does everything in her power to ensure that Israel’s next paramedics will be skilled, professional, and humane first responders.

Boaz Tzabari, the father of four, has been an MDA volunteer in Sderot for many years. On Oct. 7, he  arrived at the MDA station in Sderot and began ministering to the constant flow of wounded people. He took care of the many teams of volunteers who went out to save lives, protecting the station with his body when terrorists approached the fence attempting to breach it. Boaz still serves as a pillar in Sderot, strengthening volunteers, families of evacuees, and residents of the city.

Uniformity: A soldier’s story

While many soldiers, particularly women, miss choosing their own clothes, 35-year-old reservist Shlomo Hammer was happy to not have to bother.

When he was first called up on Oct. 7, Hammer went from being a physical therapist administering his private clinic in Jerusalem to becoming a soldier. The Gush Etzion father of four only had one regulation army shirt in his wardrobe.

When he went to collect clothes at the army warehouse, he found that all the gear was three times his size. With 350,000 reservists called up on the same day, there just wasn’t enough.

After three weeks, he was able to get one tactical shirt via an organization donating army clothes. Tactical gear is usually only reserved for elite combat soldiers; however, soldiers were scrambling to get whatever fit, and Hammer said the tactical shirt was a comfortable change of clothing.

Then he had to worry about boots. Soldiers were called in so quickly that some reservists only had sandals.

“The army just didn’t have enough regulation boots to give us,” Hammer recalled. “Fortunately, our troop got a donation of NIS 100,000, and we were able to get Salamone boots. The army relaxed the regulations, so we are able to wear non-regulation boots.”

“In the past, it didn’t bother us if we didn’t have comfortable gear for training,” he continued, “but when you are going into a life-or-death situation with just one knapsack with all our food, fighting gear, and rain clothes, suddenly our uniforms became very important.”

Hammer said there is a bright side to uniformity.

“At the beginning of the war, the whole country was fighting with one another, and there was a lot of contempt for one another. When the army mobilized, suddenly, we were all looking uniform, doing the same thing.

“I like waking up knowing that it doesn’t matter what I wear; we are all wearing the same thing, and we are all doing the same thing. Left, Right... in the end, we are all here for the same reason.”