It’s an unseasonably warm November morning at Michaeli Café on Tel Aviv’s Gordon Beach. Surfers with wetsuits peeled to their waists knock back schnitzels and five-o’clock-somewhere beers as they trade play-by-plays of their latest set. A cluster of young moms gossips over coffee, one eye on their children digging in the sand. The music is just loud enough that you have to raise your voice to be heard, the thrum of bass mingling with laughter and the steady slap of paddleball nearby.
Only when you reach the counter do you realize that this lively little café is also a memorial. Watching over the display case’s neat rows of sandwiches, pastries, and fruit tarts is a portrait of Omri Michaeli, a decorated fighter in the IDF’s elite Duvdevan unit who was killed on October 7, 2023.
The café was created by his friend and business partner, Eyal Almog; the two had planned to go sailing from this very beach that morning when news broke of an infiltration on Israel’s southern border. Both rushed to join the fighting.
For Miki Michaeli, Omri’s father, the restaurant is a source of both pain and pride. “It’s difficult to see your son’s face under these circumstances,” he said in an interview with The Jerusalem Report.
“But it’s also important. Not only for Omri’s friends and family to have a place to come and remember him, but for others to learn who he was and what he did for his country,” his bereaved father said.
Lighting strikes
Many Israelis would already have recognized Miki’s son long before his death. During 2014’s Protective Edge operation in Gaza, Omri was seriously wounded in Khan Yunis while protecting a fellow soldier from a grenade, an act that earned him a military commendation from the IDF’s Chief of Staff.
He became a national symbol when an iconic photograph of him lying on a stretcher, wrapped in an Israeli flag, was featured on the front page of the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot. Omri was later injured again, this time in Jenin in the West Bank, during another round of reserve service.
On his way down south on October 7, he texted his girlfriend not to worry, joking that “lightning doesn’t strike three times.”
A myriad of initiatives
In the two years since October 7, dozens of friends, family members, and fellow soldiers have launched initiatives in memory of someone who was killed, transforming their private anguish into a public tribute that carries the name, spirit, and mission of their lost loved one.
Galit Dan of Kibbutz Nir Oz – whose mother and autistic 12-year-old daughter, Noya, were killed by Hamas terrorists – is currently raising funds for The Noya Dan Center for the Autistic Experience, which will offer visitors a hands-on encounter with autism. The center’s design, Dan says, reflects “the curiosity, imagination, and empathy that defined Noya’s life.”
Last year, friends and family of lifelong peace activist Vivian Silver created the Vivian Silver Impact Award, an annual prize presented to Jewish and Palestinian women who are continuing Silver’s legacy.
Shahar Ben-Naim was a 42-year-old surfer and father of three who was killed at the Nova music festival. Ben-Naim’s family founded the Rising Dawn Light Association, which offers therapeutic water-based programs for bereaved families, Nova survivors, and military veterans living with PTSD.
Almog Sarusi was taken hostage from Nova and later murdered in Gaza along with five other hostages. Inspired by his love of the land, Sarusi’s family created “There’s Nothing Better Than Being Good,” a foundation dedicated to building a warm home for at-risk youth and cultivating agricultural projects in the Negev.
Dr. Liron Saporta-Wiesel, a clinical psychologist who heads the trauma treatment unit at Clalit Health Service, explained to the Report the role these efforts can play in the grieving process.
“Everyone’s relationship to loss is unique and deeply personal,” she said, “but for the vast majority of people, the energy that goes into creating and working on something that commemorates the deceased is incredibly healing.”
Projects built around a loved one’s interests or values can be especially powerful.
“It allows the one in mourning to continue engaging with the person they lost by internalizing their qualities in an adaptive and healthy way,” she said.
Immediate impulse
For some families, that impulse is immediate.
“I knew reflexively I wanted to do something,” recalled writer and feminist activist Hannah Wacholder Katsman, whose son, Hayim Katsman, was murdered on Kibbutz Holit after shielding a neighbor with his body, saving her life.
“But I also knew it couldn’t be something just for the Jewish community. Hayim was dedicated to co-existence initiatives. I wanted to honor that,” his bereaved mother said.
An amateur DJ with a PhD in International Relations, Hayim worked as a gardener and a mechanic on his kibbutz. He also spent years volunteering in the nearby Bedouin city of Rahat – a connection Hannah only discovered after his death.
She partnered with CauseMatch to help launch the Hayim Center, a sustainability and education hub located in Rahat, which will focus on the things Hayim cared about most: gardening, cooking, recycling, and environmental education.
“It’s been an incredibly intense undertaking,” Katzman described. “But I remember during the early days, a friend told me I would be thankful for this time I had to dedicate myself wholly to a project in Hayim’s memory.
“And this has been very much true,” she said with a weary smile.
Effective healing
Saporta-Wiesel emphasized that commemoration does not necessarily need to take the form of a large public project, such as a foundation or a café, in order to be an effective healing tool.
“Something as small as writing a letter can be extremely valuable,” she explained.
For many families – especially those with young children – creating tangible memories is a crucial part of grieving: “Making an album, writing down special moments, even telling a story: These activities allow those in mourning to process not only the loss but the trauma of the death itself.”
“This is not like remembering what you ate for dinner last Thursday,” she said. “These are intensely painful memories. But they can be archived internally through meaningful action.”
Saporta-Wiesel’s insights may help explain why so many families feel a profound responsibility to preserve not only their own loved one’s memory but also those of others who were killed.
One of the largest of these efforts is Next October, founded by former minister and hi-tech entrepreneur Izhar Shay after his son, Staff Sgt. Yaron Shay was killed defending Kibbutz Kerem Shalom.
The initiative aims to support more than 1,800 early-stage startups, one for every person killed on and after October 7. Each company is paired with a victim or fallen soldier, shaping its mission around that individual’s story.
Dying once is enough
For the Nova Tribe Community, an association founded by festival organizers, survivors, and bereaved families, preserving the memory of the 378 people killed at the music party has become a central focus.
The organization’s immersive Nova Exhibit, now touring globally, guides visitors through the events of October 7 using digital evidence, survivor testimonies, and the personal belongings and salvaged remains left behind. Together with Lifecloud, they’ve also helped hundreds of families create QR-coded memorials.
The Ot.Hayim project turns victims’ handwriting into digital fonts for free, public use. Each font is named for the person and shared alongside their photo and life story, allowing a trace of their personality to continue shining in the world.
That same instinct – to make meaning out of the unimaginable – is what drives Miki Michaeli’s efforts as well. In addition to supporting the café, he is spearheading several other memorial projects: a military blood-donation center in honor of those who were killed in Kfar Aza; a lookout point where soldiers and students can hear the fighters’ stories; a cycling trail around the Gaza border with stops dedicated to each fallen soldier; and an educational program that brings Duvdevan veterans into schools, culminating in an annual march to the Western Wall.
“You have to understand,” Michaeli reflects. “A person can die twice: once when they’re buried, and a second time when they’re forgotten.”
He pauses. “I am now dedicating all my time and energy to making sure that doesn’t happen – not just for Omri, but for everyone from his unit who fell in battle.”■