The anniversary of the October 7 massacre is a difficult day for Israelis and Jews around the world, as well as any person of conscience.
Some members of HonestReporting’s staff were in southern Israel when Hamas’ brutal assault began; some have lost relatives, friends, and neighbors either during that day or as they fell in combat bravely defending Israel from terrorists on multiple fronts. Some have themselves fought in the IDF to protect their fellow citizens.
But all of us, some of whom were not yet working for the organization on October 7, have experienced the terror, grief, and trauma of that day and the subsequent three years that we mark today.
Here are some of their thoughts and experiences:
October 7 Reflections: An Ongoing National Trauma – Justin Pozmanter
Justin Pozmanter assumed 9/11 would always be his generation’s defining “where were you” moment, until a siren woke him and his family on October 7. He traces the months of fear that followed, from sirens on the baseball field with a team of 8-year-olds to a terror attack in his own neighborhood, and explains why he left a comfortable startup job to join HonestReporting as News Director.
October 7 Reflections: I Filmed the First Siren. I Didn’t Know What I Was Filming – David Katz
On the second day of a new walking routine, photojournalist David Katz instinctively raised his camera when the 6:34 a.m. siren sounded in Kfar Saba. Three years and thousands of analyzed October 7 images later, he returns to his own 70 seconds of footage and what it teaches him about the limits of what a camera can prove.
October 7 Reflections: It Never Ended: A Personal Account of Trauma, Loss, and Israel Advocacy – David Lange
David Lange went to synagogue early for Simchat Torah, and within half an hour the holiday had turned into a nightmare. He writes about losing his stepdaughter’s boyfriend, Yonatan Savitsky, at Kissufim, and later his stepson Gilad in Lebanon, and why those losses make walking away from the fight against the lies impossible.
October 7 Reflections: A Balm for the Banality of War – Talia Golijov
Talia Golijov and her family moved to a kibbutz on the Gaza border just six days before October 7. She recalls sending out the first rocket alert of the day from her safe room, fleeing that evening, relocating eight times, and finding in Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ distinction between optimism and hope a reason to keep doing this work.
October 7 Reflections: A Memory of the Longest Day – Michael Starr
Called up as a reservist, Michael Starr walked through the abandoned Nova festival grounds, the emptied kibbutzim, and the Nahal Oz outpost in the war’s early weeks. In a meditation on memory, sight, sound, and smell, he explains why, for him, October 7 remains “the shortest of years, and the longest of days.”
When the Media Battlefield and the Home Front Collide – Simon Plosker
For Simon Plosker, October 7 shattered any illusion that the media battlefield could be separated from the home front. Friends, neighbors, and colleagues were called up, wounded or killed. Sirens interrupted workdays. Funerals became part of daily life. And while Israelis were still burying their dead, the global narrative was already turning against them. What he wrote on the first anniversary of October 7 still rings true.
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
