Israel-Hamas war: Kibbutz Be’eri and the miracle synagogue

On the evening of October 6, laughter and merriment, song and dance, pervaded the air of Kibbutz Be’eri and the surrounding countryside. Earlier in the day, members and guests had celebrated the 77th anniversary of the founding of the community, and now families and friends gathered in and around the synagogue to mark the joyous festival of Simchat Torah. Among the celebrants was Pasi Cohen, who came to dance with her grandchildren and other family members.

Until 2006, celebrating in a synagogue at Be’eri would have been a contradiction in terms. Situated just 4 km. from the 1949 Armistice Agreement line that separates Israel from Gaza – as agreed between Israel and its Arab neighbors – the kibbutz had been a bastion of secularism. That was before Rachel Fricker came along.

Born 70 years ago to Yemenite parents, Rachel is a woman of many parts. But there is something that connects those parts, and that is her enormous heart. Add to that a will of iron and a way with people and the sum is an unstoppable force of goodwill and lovingkindness.

Growing up in urban Ramat Gan, she studied and practiced nursing. Then, 35 years ago, she met converted Swiss kibbutznik Erwin Fricker and joined him at Be’eri. They built a beautiful home designed mainly by Erwin, and in recent years they have constructed an annual succah which has always been open to neighbors and visitors. Rachel was among the founders of a home for the elderly on the kibbutz, which she directed for 20 years.

In 2006, Rachel was asked by two recently arrived members, David Cohen and Arik Kringel, to assist in establishing a synagogue on the kibbutz. Although she is not halachicly observant, they were impressed by her traditional upbringing and her ability to develop complex projects. Enthused by the idea and undaunted by the challenge of convincing kibbutz members, she signed on. Her father had founded a synagogue in Ramat Gan but died before its dedication, so she felt that she would be closing a circle. WITH THE scroll at the President’s Residence (above, from L): Menachem Kalmanson’s daughter; Fricker; and Rabbi David Avraham Pressman. (credit: HAIM ZACH/GPO)

Rachel knew that the way to achieve their objective was through cooperation and understanding, so she spent a year in discussion with secular haverim (members) who were afraid of a religious takeover. Before council meetings Rachel, who is a deeply spiritual person, would speak with God, something she does constantly.

“I have an open channel to God,” she says, “and He listens.” Advertisement

Creating a synagogue in the Gaza border area kibbutz

More than speaking during those meetings, she listened, embracing their concerns and creating an environment of partnership, and after protracted dialogue, the members voted in favor of the synagogue’s establishment. A small building in the center of the kibbutz was allocated and it was named “Ahavat Yisrael,” (Love of/for Israel)  “Everything related to the synagogue is a miracle, including its creation,” says Rachel.

Unfortunately, shortly after the founding, David Cohen passed away and Arik Kringel left the kibbutz.

Rachel was left holding the keys. Rather than despair, she undertook to run and maintain the synagogue, learning the ropes as she went along. She established a relationship with members of neighboring religious Kibbutz Alumim, who lead the services. These include Binyamin Zarbiv and Gilad Hunweld – an MDA medic who risked his life to save many at Alumim on October 7.

From its humble beginnings, activities expanded. Over the High Holy Days, the 100-seater synagogue is packed and the Yom Kippur Ne’ilah service, attended by 200, is held outside. It has become a venue for weddings, circumcisions, bar-mitzvahs, and memorial events. And sometimes people call Rachel up simply asking for the key, for it has become a sanctuary of solace for those in personal distress. Through the wars and special operations conducted by the IDF over the years, hundreds of soldiers have entered its doors.

“There is a sanctity to this place,” she says.

WHO COULD have conceived that just hours after the joyous celebrations of Simchat Torah, so many of the participants would be murdered, wounded, and kidnapped in the atrocity, including Pasi Cohen and 11 others: men, women, and children who were massacred in her home.

The Frickers, including their daughter Nofar, son Ofir, and daughter-in-law Sapir – who was 41 weeks pregnant – spent 12 harrowing hours in their safe room together with the brother of a neighbor. Terrorists entered their home, threw grenades, and shot at the safe-room door. Erwin and Ofir held the handle, and Ofir held a knife too. The neighbor’s brother, who was in a state of deep shock, wanted to leave, and Sapir was distraught, thinking that they all, including her unborn baby, would die.

Yet, says Rachel, “I felt a strange serenity and sense of acceptance. I told myself that I had reached the age of 70, had tasted a little of this life and if it ended then, it would be okay. But I was afraid that something would happen to my children. My friends and neighbors were murdered, and I saw their last messages on WhatsApp. I am a person of faith, so I read Psalms on my cellphone until my battery ran out.”

When the army finally arrived, it took them some time to convince the Frickers that they were not terrorists and that the house was on fire. They were taken to a neighboring home and from there, evacuated to safety by Elhanan Kalmenson.

In one of the many great heroic acts of that day, Elhanan, his brother Menahem, and their nephew Itiel had driven from their homes in Otniel, to save members of the kibbutz from the inferno. They commandeered an armored vehicle abandoned by the side of the road and rescued dozens of men, women, children, and elderly people under enemy fire, returning to the kibbutz time and again to save more lives.

After more than 14 hours of intense and relentless rescue efforts, Elhanan was killed by a terrorist bullet.

Sapir gave birth, two days later, to a girl they named Arbel. The Fricker home, lovingly designed by Erwin, was burnt beyond salvation, but in another quirk of fate, which Rachel sees as symbolic of the fragility of our lives and the importance of focusing on the spiritual, their welcoming succah remained unscathed.

Quite remarkably, the synagogue too, survived intact and has since been in continuous use by soldiers in the area, regardless of affiliation. Just as it was during times of peace, it is a bastion of unity and spirituality.

“Perhaps this is the reason that I came to the kibbutz,” says Rachel.

FIVE YEARS ago, Rabbi David Avraham Pressman came to Be’eri on a mission. Born to what he terms “a fanatically religious family in Bnei Brak,” he set out to write a Torah Scroll that would represent all of Israel, with individual letters written by the likes of the late Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and Aviv Geffen, Assi Azar, and Miriam Peretz. Judges and convicts were included and yes, the children of Be’eri. It was there that Rachel met Rabbi Pressman and they found common ground in values of inclusion and fellowship that have kept them in contact through the years.

When Rabbi Pressman heard what had transpired at the kibbutz, his response was to initiate the writing of a Torah scroll, which he plans to install in the Ahavat Yisrael synagogue on the anniversary of the disaster. It will be dedicated to the memory of Elhanan Kalmenson and all those murdered on Kibbutz Be’eri.

In a moving ceremony in the shul, which took place just weeks after the massacre, the rabbi and Rachel Fricker, surrounded by tens of soldiers and members of ZAKA, held a quill together and inked in the first letter of that sefer, a “bet” for “Bereishit” (“In the beginning”). How fateful, that the letters of the name “Be’eri” are all contained in that word that epitomizes new beginnings emerging from the depths of chaos.

I spoke to Rachel just after she had returned to her Dead Sea hotel room from a meeting at the President’s Residence where Isaac and Michal Herzog had written their own letters in the scroll. After speaking about the heroic Kalmansons, the victims, and the fallen, the visibly moved president spoke of the eternity of the Jewish nation.

In late winter, the lands of the Western Negev are carpeted in red by the magnificent flowering of anemones. This year, in late fall, they were covered with the blood of our slain. But as sure as winter follows fall, the anemones will return and so too, will the people. Rachel has no doubt that kibbutz life will be restored at Be’eri. Already its printing press has resumed activity, harvesting is underway, and Hanukka lamps were lit on the lintels of the destroyed homes.

Through the ages, the timeless response of our nation to attempts to destroy us has been to rise and rebuild.

On Simchat Torah, the day we ended the cycle of reading the Torah, it was Hamas’s intent to end all Jewish life across the hills and valleys, mountains and wadis of our beautiful, sacred, and turbulent land.

What our sadistic adversaries did not reckon with, is that as we complete the reading, we immediately return to the beginning, to Bereishit. So too, it shall be in the holy Ahavat Yisrael synagogue on Kibbutz Be’eri.

The writer’s wartime activities include authoring articles, producing evenings of resilience and unity for communities with his Zimrat Efrat Choir, creating inspirational musical clips, and giving presentations on the nature of heroism.