In trying to plan a commemoration for the second anniversary of Oct. 7, neither St. Paul Jewish Federation’s Tal Dror Rouache or Minneapolis Jewish Federation’s Eilat Harel wanted a “heavy” event to have to plan.
“I think there’s a lot of space to hold meaningful programming for that day and not just get together to remember,” Rouache said.
Said Harel: “For now, we know that it’s needed. Yom HaZikaron will never go away. But as long as we’re doing Oct. 7 [events], that means that, every six months, we need to put on something that has to do with death. That’s hard.”
St. Paul’s “Marking October 7” and Minneapolis’ “Echoes of October” are both being held on Sunday, Oct. 5; St. Paul’s is 2-4 p.m., and Minneapolis’ is 7-8:30 p.m. Locations will be given upon registration. The events are not being held on Oct. 7 because it is the first day of Sukkot.
St. Paul’s program will honor the memory of Noi Maudi, who taught at Talmud Torah of St. Paul from 2017-2022 when he moved back to Israel. His ex-wife, Sophia Ariola, will be addressing the crowd.
“It’s really incredibly difficult,” she said. “I distract myself a lot by staying busy in life because [talking about it] is extremely challenging for me. But I need to do that for him.”
Ariola first met Maudi when she was visiting her brother, who made aliyah to be a lone soldier, in 2012. The two got married in Cyprus in 2016 and moved to St. Paul after that. The two divorced in 2022, and Maudi moved back to Israel. They last saw each other in 2023 when she was in Israel for her brother’s wedding.
“We got dinner, we hung out. I spent time with him,” she said. “There was so much more than just a kernel of love.
“On the seventh [of October] I reached out to him and sent a text asking if he was okay, and when I didn’t hear from him I reached out to his sister.”
Maudi was shot in his car along with his brother-in-law, Moti Elkabetz, and nephew Matan Rosenberg, at the Psyduck Music Festival near Kibbutz Nirim. Another brother-in-law was in the car but survived the attack.
Ariola said that in a short time, Maudi built strong relationships with his students at TTSP, and that branched out into his relationships with friends and family.
“It was always very, very easy for him to connect with children and inspire people of all ages,” she said. “His mind was so animated, he was so creative, he was so drawn to find solutions and creative ways, and he was able to connect with students of all ages and bring out the creativity and imagination.”
Maudi’s imagination will be on display as well. Ariola said he got interested in creating digital AI art, and some of his pieces will be set up for people to see.
The event will also feature testimony from 28-year-old Yoni Viloga of Kibbutz Mefalsim. On October 7, Yoni was at home with his parents and brothers when terrorists invaded his community. Armed alongside his father, Yoni protected his family and neighbors, offering shelter and safety amidst unimaginable danger. His story is one of courage, quick thinking, and the will to survive.
“We want to get the St Paul community together to reflect and educate and remember,” Rouache said. “I think there’s a lot of space to create education. That’s why it was important for me to bring the testimony so the survivor can actually share his story.”
Music featured at Minneapolis event
Later on Oct. 5, the event in Minneapolis will feature stories from Kibbutz Holit, which is Minneapolis’ Communities2Gether partner kibbutz. Yanay Elbaz, one of the speakers, was in Holit when Oct. 7 was happening. His trip to Minnesota will be the first time he’s spoken about the events of that day outside of Israel.
“It’s been two years that passed, and even in Israel, some people – many people – don’t know that Holit exists,” he said. “For me, as a kibbutz member, it’s very important to tell the story of Holit.”
Elbaz called Holit “one of the smallest Kibbutz on earth,” and it’s located near the southern end of the Gaza Strip.
“If someone wants to know the story about October 7, you can stop in Be’eri, or Nir Oz,” he said. “You don’t need to come to Holit to see all the horrible [things] that happened on these days.”
One Elbaz’s new skills is singing and songwriting. He took these up after Oct. 7 when three of his friends in Holit – musicians – were killed.
“When they were murdered, I felt the music in Holit died also,” he said. “This fact actually pushed me to start singing, and I start to write and compose. I usually sing for my friends that were murdered on Oct. 7.”
Elbaz will be singing some of his original songs at the event.
“I want people to see my [strength] because that will make me stronger than I was before the war,” he said. “Before the war, I wasn’t a believer. I lost my belief in God as a grown-up man.
“But after the war, after all the miracles, and my personal miracle that I wasn’t there with my family, it was a big miracle. I found my faith again, in God, and now today, I’m much more of a believer than I was before the war.”
The relationship with Holit came together as Communities2Gether was being launched as an initiative with the Jewish Agency for Israel and Jewish Federations of North America to create a direct line of support and collaboration between American communities and the Israeli communities in the Gaza Envelope that suffered the greatest losses on Oct. 7.
MJF CEO Jim Cohen said he and Harel met with senior leadership of the Jewish Agency in February 2024 on the Tikvatenu 1 trip to Israel.
“We decided we needed to bring it back to our leadership,” Cohen said. “When we all realized what was at stake in rebuilding the Gaza envelope, everyone was on board.”
“They knew that down the road, in about five years, they’re coming back,” said Harel. “But how do they make sure that they maintain a community in order to be able to come back as a community? The baseline for partnership is the people-to-people connections.”
Many residents from Holit were evacuated to Rehovot, which has long been Minneapolis’ Partnership2Gether region. Others were relocated to Kibbutz Revivim.
“The goal was to integrate those families (evacuated to Rehovot) and even Revivim because they are a part of the [Holit] community into our partnership programs,” said Harel. “When we had the business exchange through [P2G], the group went to Holit to learn about the business aspect of Holit.”
Cohen said that the relative youth of the kibbutz and the entrepreneurial nature of Holit also made it a good match for Minneapolis.
“As we looked at our business affinity group, the profile of up-and-coming leaders, we saw an opportunity there that would last beyond the rebuilding process.”
Although P2G and C2G are different programs, Cohen said that they insisted on a three-way partnership between Minneapolis, Rehovot and Holit going forward.
“The three communities will remain in touch,” Cohen said. “I don’t know to what extent others (in P2G and C2G) do that, but because our relationship with Rehovot is so strong, we able to articulate we wanted that. I hope in years to come, our teens can visit and stay in Holit, and people from Holit can visit here.”
Through the partnership with Holit, MJF enabled Holit Revivim – the area of Revivim where Holit residents have temporary housing – to purchase generators so they’d have ongoing electricity. Those generators will go back to Holit whenever they can return.
David Benloulou, the chairman of Kibbutz Holit, lives in Revivim; Harel said it was not uncommon for the chairperson of a kibbutz to live in a different one.
“I want to speak about our hopes, what we are doing to rehabilitate the kibbutz,” Benloulou said. “The people, the economy, the relationship with the government – not in a political way, but in an economic way. The rehabilitation is not only physical, but also mental.”
Benloulou said the Minneapolis community has been very supportive of Holit as the kibbutzniks try to figure out what comes next.
“People don’t know exactly what to do or how to do it, and we learn every day, every morning,” he said. “It’s not easy, but I can tell you that Jewish people, the Israeli people, are always talking about growing and moving on. We’re crazy, but in a good way.”
