An unexpected series of events led Sandy Springs resident Karen Shulman to visit Israel in late December.
Shulman was raised Jewish, but she wasn’t always connected to the Jewish homeland.
Seven years ago, she attended a gala hosted by the Friends of the Israel Defense Force (FIDF) where she was moved by gala speaker former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and refused to leave until she “spoke to whoever’s in charge.”
After hundreds of other attendees left the event, Shulman met Garry Sobel, now a national board member for the organization that champions Israel’s troops. Since then, she has worked with Sobel daily, becoming an active FIDF board member and fundraiser.
Oct. 7, 2023
Fast forward to 2023. Shulman, a member of The Temple, had finished her second term as FIDF chair for Georgia and the Southeast states a few months before Israel came under attack on Oct. 7. She jumped right back in, instinctually.
The brutality of Oct. 7 lit a fire inside her, Shulman said. Her cousin had just moved to Israel, and through her work with FIDF she had made many friends in the Israeli military.
“I wasn’t sleeping at night, Shulman said. “I was constantly looking for updates. I had a connection to Israel, and I wanted to see it firsthand,” although no missions were running in the weeks after the attacks.
Shulman called the Tel Aviv FIDF office and was told there was “absolutely” a need for volunteers. She booked an open ticket for the last few days of December 2023, knowing that the details of the trip would be figured out upon her arrival.
Heading to Israel
On El Al Airlines from Miami, she found her people. That feeling of just “being Jewish” kicked in, she said. She made fast friends; a wounded soldier from one of the brigades she knew, a mother figure who checked on everyone, and a journalist who was planning to interview hostages.
“We spent the whole flight talking,” Shulman laughed. “I went into this situation a little bit uneasy, and within an hour and a half of the flight we were all connected. The soldier invited us to Shabbat with his family. It was heartwarming.”
She and Sobel met at a Tel Aviv hotel where they were the only non-evacuees. She discovered that Israelis were appreciative that Americans were visiting.
Hotel felt like a kibbutz
“Normally, you go to Israel and have huge Israeli breakfasts. Now it’s a whole different vibe. Everyone’s together like a kibbutz. One of the mornings, and there was a bit of a language barrier, but we sat listening to Israelis talk about their experiences,” she said.
She felt less like a guest, and more like a member of a large family. Hotel service was limited, but the streets were brimming with people in Tel Aviv. There’s a sense of resilience, she said, and people are trying to “get back to normal.”
Some normalcy in Tel Aviv
Feeling safe in Tel Aviv, Shulman visited wounded soldiers and packed supplies for FIDF.
“The streets were packed, the bars were busy, and it’s still hard to get a reservation at a restaurant. Girls who are walking down the streets dressed for the evening, instead of a purse they’re carrying a gun the same size as them on their back,” said Shulman.
“It was the piece missing from our trip, and a total surprise,” said Shulman. “After seeing the table and talking about the hostages, we needed to bear witness.”
On their last night in Israel, she and Sobel were at dinner with a former soldier. They got word they could visit Be’eri Kibbutz the next day – just before their flight back to the U.S.
Haunting images at Nova site
Driving south toward Gaza, she described plumes of smoke and explosions that shook their vehicle. She was questioning every decision she’d made because “you have no idea what you’re about to get yourself into.”
When people tour Israel in organized groups, they often have helmets and bulletproof vests. It’s well coordinated. This was not that, she said. They arrived at Nova, the site of the music festival where 364 people were murdered and 40 hostages were taken by Hamas.
“The site takes your breath away because a lot of the people making the trip, being that it’s so close to the border, are soldiers and family members,” Shulman said. “It was surreal.”
Nearly every car, portable restroom, and piece of clothing from Nova has been relocated to an exhibit in Tel Aviv to recreate the scene. Upon entering the exhibit music is blasting and lights are flashing.
“You feel like you’re in a rave at first. You don’t know what you’re looking at because it’s overwhelming, and then you take a few steps in and you realize that the porta-potties are riddled with bullet holes. The cars stacked up against the wall are completely burned out. There’s a wall of last messages to loved ones being projected onto the wall. The campsites are set as they were, with tents and sleeping bags and water bottles.”
The most haunting site is a pile of shoes. It’s absolutely horrific, she said, recalling watching a man search through the pile for what she assumed was his loved one’s shoes. Personal messages in multiple languages cover the walls, cars, and tents.
She said, “I kept wondering, ‘Was this specific message left in the car because they knew that their loved one was killed in this car?’”
Even though the land has been cleared for the exhibit in Tel Aviv, there’s still an eerie feeling at Nova. Large photos of festival-goers are attached to stakes in the ground, like a giant yearbook of victims.
After an hour at Nova, the group was met by an IDF commander who asked for his name to remain private. They traveled together to Be’eri Kibbutz, the site with the highest death toll on Oct. 7.
‘No rhyme or reason’
Be’eri still smells like it’s burning. The commander narrated while walking Shulman and her colleagues in and out of homes, including one in which his soldier was shot.
“There was no rhyme or reason for how they attacked,” she said, describing a house nearly burned to the ground next to one untouched. “[Hamas] must have been really out of their minds. There was no pattern to their destruction.”
“It was terrifying. These are people’s homes. You see what’s left of a living room, the stairs that once led to another floor. Now you can see to the sky. As a mom you’re seeing what could have been your child’s toys on the ground,” her voice shook. “I was hyper-aware of everything we were looking at, and trying to focus on what he was saying. I was also very aware of where I was stepping.”
One more stop before the airport
On the way to the airport, the commander asked if they wanted to visit his artillery unit close to the border. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, like most of the day had been.
“Not knowing exactly where we were, it wasn’t until I was handed night vision goggles that I realized we were upon a base of hundreds of soldiers who live in complete darkness to preserve their location,” Shulman said.
The soldiers were fully equipped. Finally, she got them to relent, saying they would be happy to receive a few small generators.
Shulman said it was hours before her heart rate settled. On the airplane, it was the first moment she had to process the trip. She couldn’t eat or drink, she just stared out the window of the plane and cried.
“It was a good, meaningful trip. I’m proud of the work we do with FIDF and I realized how important it is to get back,” she said.
Go Deeper: Rough Draft’s coverage of the local impact of the Israel-Hamas war is on this page. Subscribe to Y’alla, our weekly newsletter about Atlanta’s Jewish community here.
