BGU & YOU | NOVEMBER 2023

Israel's president, Isaac Herzog (left), visited Ben's (right) unit on October 17, 2023. Photo: Courtesy

Ester is also struck by the randomness of who survived and who did not, whose house is still standing and whose was consumed by fire. “Alon’s house in Kfar Azza is still standing, but the ones on either side were completely destroyed,” she explains in a vain bid to impose some sort of order to random chaos. At some point, she saw a video of a guy leaping out of his window into a passing IDF jeep in Kfar Azza on the news. Later, her friend Simon Peretz called and said, “Did you see that guy jumping out the window? That was me.” “What crazy luck that a jeep was passing, and he seized the chance to escape. People in the next house over from him were murdered,” Ester says quietly. This is not the family’s first brush with danger, but it is the most serious. Moshe, 59, Ester’s father, is a staunch Likudnik who builds security fences and secure installations for the Ministry of Defense. During a terrorist attack on Morag, his close friend and colleague was killed right beside him. This was much worse. “I could picture him with his head in his hands as he talked to me. He was so upset. He couldn’t understand how this could have happened and where the army was,” she recalls.

Meanwhile, Moshe and Osnat, Ester’s mother, are refugees in Eilat. They need to explain to their grandchildren how there are explosions over the city despite having told them there were no rockets in Eilat. Ofek, 19, Ester’s youngest brother, who is also with them in Eilat, was supposed to enlist in mid-October, but for now, his enlistment has been deferred. Under other circumstances, the disruption to Ester’s own future life path would be significant. Now, it pales in comparison. Ester fought hard to get into Ben-Gurion University, doing not one but two transfer programs until she was accepted as a second-year student in the behavioral sciences program. She had been studying intensely for the certification exam to be accepted into the master’s program in clinical psychology at BGU. Days and nights of studying, practice tests, endlessly reviewing the massive amounts of material the test covers. The test is offered once a year. The date for this year? October 10. Ester’s academic and professional life is on hold until she can take the test, which has yet to be rescheduled. But it almost doesn’t matter as she worries about Ben and her brothers on the frontlines and helps her parents and other family members with anything and everything she can.

21

STRONG AND UNITED WE WILL PREVAIL