October 7 forever stained the calendars of Jews and Israelis around the world. It was also a startling reminder of why Jewish connection is so profoundly essential to our survival.
October 7 is the day that my son-in-law, Maj. Raz Peretz, was killed in a heroic battle at the Kissufim base while saving his fellow soldiers, many of whom survived because of his sacrifice.
It was that loss, and how I dealt with it, which made me realize how small the Jewish community truly is, and how interconnected our lives are, even when we are generations apart.
As I grieved my family’s loss and spoke out about our suffering, I began hearing about the severe psychological distress soldiers were facing after being exposed to the horrors of that day. I know firsthand. As a retired police officer, I’ve been living with PTSD myself. The only way I felt I could survive the undying, excruciating pain was to help other soldiers, like those whom my son-in-law saved, in whatever small way I could, without a psychology degree or medical expertise.
I searched online for a nearby place to volunteer. That’s how I discovered Matanya Farm in Moshav Balfouria. The farm is supported by the nonprofit organization Israel Friends, which stands at the critical crossroads of trauma and healing, working hand in hand with civilians and soldiers across Israel to ensure that those who have endured traumatic events do not carry them into lifelong PTSD.
When I arrived in May 2025, the farm’s founder, Sendi Ben-Zaken, told me about his friend, Matanya Robinson, in whose memory the farm was created. Matanya fell in combat just before his 22nd birthday, during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002.
I couldn’t believe it. I knew Matanya and the Robinson family from Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi. My eldest sister had lived there for 50 years, Matanya was in the same class as my nephew Chen, and I had spent my summers there before joining the army.
I reconnected with Matanya’s parents, Mark and Reena, and listened to their eerily familiar story of grief and overcoming it. Our beloved sons were taken from us decades apart, yet our desire to give back brought us all to the same place, at the same time. It felt like God had guided me to Matanya Farm, connecting parts of my life in ways I could have never imagined. I was the one degree of separation between Matanya and Raz. This is what it is to be in Israel, to be Jewish.
The importance of Jewish geography
The term “Jewish geography” originated to define a scenario, albeit less uncanny, similar to this. Though outwardly fun and exciting to identify mutual connections with someone you’ve just met, beneath the questions of “Where’s your family from?” or “What camp did you go to?” lies something far deeper. It exposes just how small our people are while illuminating how tightly bound we remain. It makes us feel less alone. And it forces us to acknowledge that without these bonds, we could not carry the burden – and the blessing – of being Jewish.
TIME AND time again throughout history, from the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BCE, to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, to the many expulsions from Arab lands after 1948, Jews have been forced to abandon their homes, uprooted from their families, and told to start over. By every rational measure, such repeated traumas should have left us scattered, fragmented, and broken.
But as our story goes, that’s not what happened. Instead of disintegration, our history has bound us together in ways that are perhaps incomprehensible to those who have never carried the pain of knowing their grandmother was murdered in the Holocaust, or known someone whose friend never made it out of the Supernova music festival alive.
As a people comprising just a tiny portion of the world’s population – 0.2% to be exact – connection sustains us. Indeed, connection is the miracle that explains Jewish resilience. We treat our fellow Jews as brothers and sisters – reveling in their successes and mourning their losses, even paying our respects at the funerals of people we have never met – because we understand a truth that has existed within the Jewish community since time immemorial: without each other, we would not be here today.
Walking into Matanya Farm was a moment not even the most successful game of Jewish geography could have prepared me for. It reignited my passion to support my Jewish family. I told Sendi I was ready to help in any way the farm needed, whether cooking, treating soldiers, or simply spreading the word.
Throughout the darkest chapters of my life – losing my sister and my parents, battling cancer, mourning the death of my son-in-law – I have chosen to remain strong, to keep going. I choose life. And I choose hope.
That’s what I strive to do every day: to turn personal pain into a source of hope and healing for my people. To be the one degree of separation that unites us on our darkest days.
The writer served in the Israel Police for 30 years, retiring as the Investigations Coordinator at the Afula Police Department. She has four children and one grandchild, and lives in Afula.