Welcome back to she Pivo. My name is Eden Gufner.
Welcome to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk with women who dared to pivot out of one career and into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Today's episode is particularly important to me. Today I'm sitting down with Eden Geffner, a survivor of the October seventh terrorist attack in Israel. Today mark's the one year anniversary since the attacks, and this feels like the right time to share her story.
Eden lives in Tel Aviv and iscontinuing her studies. We often ask our guests if there's a nonprofit that they want us to share on the website, and Eden asked us to share Faces of October seven, which was the organization that brought her over to the US, to share her story. So you can find that link on the sheep of its website.
I'm Jewish, and growing up we were always taught to carry on stories of our ancestors, to never forget it's deeply ingrained in our religion and our culture. So sharing Eden's story felt not only important but necessary to me. Eden lived in Kibbutz reyin a kibbutz that was part of the quote Gaza envelope, meaning that it was extremely close to the Gaza border, just three miles in fact. She grew up there among a vibrant, closely knit community.
Now twenty nine, Eden lives in Tel Aviv, but had gone home to visit her parents and an old childhood friend on October sixth, in twenty twenty three. Growing up so close to the Gazen border, there was always a sense of unease. They never felt truly safe, as Eden will tell you in this episode, but they could have never imagined what would unfold around them in the early hours of October seventh. Eden recounts the horrowing events of
October seventh and how she learned from them. She speaks with vulnerability, honesty, and kindness, something rare and beautiful amongst all of the pain. First and foremost, Eden's experience is singular and important. Her story is one of thousands from that day that have been under reported, and I feel honored to give her the space and the platform to
share her story uninterrupted. However, there are thousands of experiences that have unfolded over the past year, many of them filled with suffering, many of them not Israeli or Jewish. This podcast isn't meant as a solution, but as a way to showcase a story that feels important to me as a Jewish person. The Jewish faith talks about how each person contains a universe, and it breaks my heart to think about what we have lost in those who
died Jewish and Palestinian. To say the loss has been immense as an understatement, and I want to recognize the suffering and the death of all. I hope you hold space for Eden as you listen to this episode and continue to stay in gain and educated. This episode contains references to violence and topics that may be setting to some. Please listen with care.
My name is Eden Gufner and I'm a student. I'm studying a dual degree in management and psychology, and in my free time, I'm working as a PI largist in structure.
Okay, so where are you from? Where were you born?
So? I was born in kibut Im, Kibot Reim. It's located in Gaza envelope in Israel. We say Gaza envelope because like we are the keybod seem that actually like Circule the Gaza strip, so I was born there. I have only two borders, big borders. I'm the little princess, so I have to be big brothers. And my grandma live in Tel Aviv. We're really smaller family. My mom actually came for Buenos Ayreus. She came from Argentina, and my father was born in Israel. But they didn't have
a connection to this area like at all. My grandpa didn't live there, like we didn't have a friend that lived there. But when my father was in the army, in his weekend, he liked to come to the kibuts because in the army you can join to a group that going each weekend to do a kibut seem in the south, and my father used to visit there in the in the weekends. And my father fell in love in this area because my area is so beautiful. It's like the countryside of Israel, and it's just so quiet.
It's so peaceful to live there. Sometimes it's ironic that the same peaceful, but the fact that it was truly peaceful. And my mother just said yes, because they want to go our family and to grow our family in the city. It's a bit complicated, so they wanted for us to grow up like in the countryside of Israel.
I was actually wondering, how did your parents meet, because that had your parents met?
Actually my my mom, My mom is Jewish, and my mom grew up in Argentina, in Buenos Ayrus, and I think that back then Buenos Ayrus wasn't a super safe place to grow up because the situation over there and the corruption. So she decided to do Aliyah too is weell. And one day when she became a teacher a few years there later, so one day at school and her and her work, one of her friends want to set her up blinded like she do, we say, and this she was my father and they met in some university
outside of some university in Israel, and they follow in love. Yeah.
I don't think that people realize that that many Jews fled Europe during and after World War Two, both the South America and Mexico.
Yes, a lot of Jewish. My mom's side, they escaped from Poland, and my father's side escaped from you like now Ukraine, but back then it was a part of the Union, so viet I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, same as my family. What is the other formers of you?
Yeah, yeah, I'm not so sure because my grandpa didn't speak so much about the time. But my grandpa actually was escaping from the Holocaust. His entire family was murder over there in the concentration camp. So my grandpa escaped to Israel and then he met my grandpa. My grandma's or is Sarah. My father was born after that of my second Marrit.
Your grandfather didn't talk about it much, but was that kind of part of your family tradition, like family history, like to have that understanding that you were there because your family was able to flee.
It's crazy because I think that only now when I'm hearing this in this tour about speaking about what happened in the Keyboots Only now I'm really posing and stopping, I would say, and just think about my history. Because my father is like a really tough Keybootsnaker. It's a really tough person. Don't like speak about a lot about his history and speak about a lot like how it was to grow up with a Holocaust survivor, because I'm sure that to gow up with a father that survived
the Holocaust is not super easy. So my father didn't speak so much about our words. Is super proud in his words, but we don't speak so much in his words. So only now when I'm standing and speaking with the people, I'm really starting to think about my history, about that my grandpa escaped from the Holocaust and letting me live in Israel because this is like, this is my words.
I needed to be proud of my Jewish And then the fact that I'm living in Israel because my grandpa was fighting so hard to do aliatu as well, and fighting so hard to come to this heaven, I would say, So I think that only now I'm starting to speak with my father about our history, and I'm starting to feel so proud in my history because my grandpa actually give me a life.
Yeah, it's an important part of Jewish tradition, at least here in the States, and I imagine for you as well. But we always say that we bear witness, like we don't turn away from our history. We need to understand the stories so that it doesn't happen again.
Yes, and it's even more hard because in Israel, in the high school, you go to a history exam, and I will say, when you need to go to exam on the Holocaust, I can't understand because my grandpa was if I it was in the Holocaust. So to learn about the history in Israel and to learn it back then when I was eighteen, and then I will say, to experience a kind of second Holocaust. But in twenty twenty three, it was crazy because when you grew up in Israel and you do this exam about the Holocaust,
you know that this is your legacy. But nobody could imagine that it will be happening again. I was preparing myself about the concentuation cap and how the Nazis was killing the jew. I didn't imagine that the same thing maybe will happen to me some days. So it's crazy because this is it was like I was feeling that this is my legacy. I would say, this is my history. But now it became even more personal.
Still with the dream of raising their kids in the countryside of Israel, ed And and her family moved to Kibbut's Rhyme in the western part of the country.
Keyboots. It's really beautiful a way to grow up and to live because you live in I would say in a group, for example, my parents when they get a salary each month, they entered the salary to the Kyboots, and the Kiboots just give you the money back, but by the children that you have, Like for example, if you have two children, you get this amount of money. And if you want to do some activities or something like this, you need to ask money from the key Boots.
Or just if you want to, like to do your driving license, you need to go to the secretary of the Keyboots and tell them, hey, I need to do my driver lescense and I grew up with a bunch of friends, like from the kindergarten until high school, with the same group of friends. I think that's like the most we say wonderful things in the key Boots. It's the value of take care of each other. Because everything you do not for you for your own success, you do it for the group success. So you work for
the Keyboots. Like I remember that my mom going edge Saturday to milk the cows, and some saturdays you go to work in the dining room. And all of the holidays you need to volunteer, and like, who are going to make this holiday, this pasta, this Hanukah, So everybody just like doing a lot of volunteering in see the Keyboots.
You mentioned the holidays. Is everybody Jewish? Do you have to be Jewish? No?
I think in the Keyboots you don't have to be to be Jewish. We have a lot of Christians, a lot of Catholic, a lot of also Arabic, like we are the key Boots. Like the value that are super important for us is to work the land, agriculture, the education. So for us, if you will be like a Christian a Muslim, for us, it is not mattering what you believe, like we accept you as a person, as a human being.
When you were growing up on the Koboat, what did you think you wanted to do? Like when you grew up, Like, how did you imagine your life? Did you always want to stay there?
Actually, when I grew up in the key Boots, I really love the history of the place of my key Boots area. So I really I was dreamed to become a acheolgit archaeologic.
I think it's the word archaeologist is the person, Yes, archaeologist.
It's really challenging my accent.
It's a hard word even in English.
So because my area it's a beautiful area and you have this all this kind of like old houses from ancient time. So I was dreamed to become areology Areo logit and to live in the area and discover more history about my place.
But like every Israeli citizen, I didn't had to serve at least two years in the army, but for her it held a deeper, more important meaning.
I will say that we are the people who live in the kybout seem for us to go to serving the army it's respect. We actually we are so competition between like me and my friend are so competitive, like which position I will get because we grew up in Gaza envelope and because we understand how much to serve the army it's important. For us. It was like the biggest mission that we need to do and the biggest
exam that we need to success in it. Because for us to serving the army was like a respect and for me, like me and my friend, like I was excited to go to the army. I will say that I think it or for a start, I will say that to serving the army was make me more matured and make me I would say, make me more matured, in my life. I think that to serve in the army give you a little bit of time to grow up, to be more we say tough, to experience some things in your life that you will never experience.
Yeah. Well, first of all, how was your English so good? And also what did you do in the army. What was your job in the army.
I was a fitness instruction in the Army. I really like to instruct people and I really love to work with human beings and I all my life used to dance ballet, So for me, this combination was wonderful. So I was a fitness instructor in the intelligence in some intelligence base in Israel. But after maybe six months I needed I was feeling that I want to do even more and I want to be in charge of the
fitness instructure in the army. So after the school of the Officer, my first position was actually a navigation officer. It was a little bit different from what I did in the start, but for me it was super cool because I was going like everywhere in Israel. I was traveling to the south of Israel, to the north in Israel, and just like making a map, a navigation map for the soldier for them to understand more good the area because like in the north, close to Lebanon, they will
have a lot of forests. So I actually built an a vacation over there for them for maybe in the future they will need to It's said because now we have a situation with Lebanon, because in Sunday, someday, they will need to get to know this area the best that they can. So my role was to build an vigation map and to instruct i will say, combat the soldier to understand them. And after that, I was a fitness officer of the tank unit in Israel. It's called
the She's a Phone. I was over there for one year and I love it so much because to understand the power of the army. If you want to understand the power of the army, you need to go to the tank unit because it's amazing. And after that I was released from the army and like because all of the Israeling going to travel after we finished the army.
For a few months in South America, I yet to know a few friends from Europe and then I was starting to speak with them English because they don't understand Nebro. So from that point I was starting to work on my English, and I'm happy. I would say that I wish that we will not be must go to the army. I would say, because I wish that the situation is well, will be a little bit different, that we don't must go to the army, and that we have a peace in the Middle East between us and the country that
surrounded us. So now when I'm thinking that I need like that, I'm studying my college only in twenty two twenty four, and I said especially I was officer in the army because I wanted to stay more in the army and to serve more use than just to challenge myself over there. So I finished the army in the age of twenty fourth instead of twenty two twenty one, because I really love to serve in the army. But now when I'm looking it back, I wish it tell
it was a little bit different. But I understand that this is a situation that we need to serve in the army that we want. But I will say that I wish that the situation was different in Israel, Like I wish that we have this friend that when you say to the young children, when we go up, we will not we will not need to go to the army tegdorvoloya. We say anybo, because we all the time wish in our heart to peace, to live in peaceful
in Israel. We don't. We will without to be a concern about what happened, what will be in an extract threat. So I just reminded right now that every mom tell her son and tell her daughter that I wish when you will be eighteen, the army will not be obligation anymore.
When we come back. Eden tells us about what her life looked like after serving in the Middle Terry. After serving, I didn't plan to take time to travel, but like so many of us, her plans were interrupted by COVID.
So I when I came back to Israel, I came back because of the COVID. I was planned to travel three months more to go to Argentina to meet my grandma, to do Pesta with my family. But then COVID happened and I was so angry. So I lived for a while in the keyboots. I was working in the keyboots because for me, it was like I didn't live for a few years in the keyboots. Because I was living in the Army, so I needed, like to settle damage
with the keyboots, to think about my future. And then it was kind of opportunity to move to Tel Aviv and for me to move from a small keyboats a super priceful keyboots to like the main Tel Aviv. It was a little bit hard. I was. I was a little bit overwhelming, and I was like, I think twenty four twenty five and I decided to move to the city and I was starting to search a job in the fitness I would say, yeah, world, after maybe one year or so that I'm doing just like an ordinary job,
I entered to a studio that I really love. I'm working in a fit house. It's like a pilate studio, the best place in tel Aviv. And from back then, I'm thinking that I'm working three years in Tel Aviv in the same studio and I love it so much. And I think that each year of living in Tel Aviv, like each year was super different from the year before.
The weekend of the attack, Edin was still living in Tel Aviv and I tried it viausse her family as often as she was able. Work was busy and it had been months, but finally the weekend of October sixth, twenty twenty three, she and her boyfriend Amit found the time to go back to visit both her family and her childhood friend. Danielle was in town visiting.
But in that weekend, like it was one of the weekend that I understand that I that I don't need to work in the weekend, so I can't go and visit my family, and a meet was agreed to come with me also, so I would say yes, like the star was aligned for me to go. It's ironic, but the star was aligned to let me go to visit
my parents in the Keyboots and it's crazy. I w a short story that like when you wre up in the Keyboots, you used to think about the other all the time, Like before I'm thinking about myself, I will think about my friends, to think about daniel to take about Tel and my mom, Like she dont like this this scale, it's not scale, but this this scale off I have. But because I have such a good friend, it came to visit from New York in that weekend in the Keyboots because she was growing up with me
in the Keyboots. But when she was twenty five, she left the Keyboots and moved to New York, but in that weekend she was in Israel. So I was like asking, like for me to see Danielle because for me, friendship is like the biggest value that I have in my life. So I made everything too that I will go this weekend to the Keyboats. Like I was scheduling with my job,
I was convincing on meat. I was telling my parents that I come like I prepare it like everything, because like for me, friendship is like it's everything, I would say. So I arranged everything that me and it will come to the Keyboats to meet it daniel before she came
back to New York. And I remember that when we came to the Keyboats in the sixth of October, we have this fun night we just play cards, and we don't play cards so much, so we just like play cards, like sit in one of our parents' balcony, in the family balcony. We just sat there like like drinking with
the parents of the neighborhood. Because it was like really common that you're sitting with your parents and your parents' friends and everybody just like sat in a big table and just like play played the cards and just drink and just having so much fun. So we have like the best evening. And I was like so happy because like I would say that I managed to see all my friends, like all my friends in the area, because like when you grow up, like everyone take his own pet.
And for me, it's a bit sad because in the keyboards you used to be like everybody together all the time. So for me, like to have this time with my friends that are super special for me, and so I was very happy. Me and I me it was just went to sleep, we say hello to my parents, and I would say it like to grow up with Gaza envelope. It's not easy like it sounds sometimes because I really remember, like in the sixth of October when me and I
meet was going to sleep in my parents' house. I was looking like like out side from my home, like outside to our guardian and our phone door, because you never feel like safe in your home, I will.
Say after the break, I don't recounts the harrowing events that she experienced on October seventh.
In the seventh of October and six thirty in the morning, we wake up to a siren in the Keybucine we have a siren that she is like. You can hear it, and it's like seva a doom, severa adome like a woman that's just like telling it in the speatures of the keyboats. And when you hear this severa adam, you know that you need to run to the sheltered room. And we call it mamad it's a shelter, a safe from inside my home that the government build after two
thousand and eight. So my mom wakes me and I meet and tell us then need we need to run there with Seva doom And I was like whatever doom Like it's like it's it's in the morning, but okay, this is what they will in. You can't be I will say indifferent. I think too the sevadom. You can't stay in your vent because you don't know if the missiles will hit in your home, but if it will be in the set phone, it will be okay. So
we run into the cell phone. We stayed there for a few moments and they will say okay, let's go back to sleep because everything is okay. It's just another regular morning in keybout Ray. I mean to living so close to a organization and then I remember that my friend texted me like, EDN, come overside, let's see the missiles in the air, because it's a crazy thing that we do. We can we see the missiles from the keyboutte because you can actually see them from going out
from Gaza because we're super close to them. So even if you don't have the siren Sevadom, you still can hear the missiles that going maybe to another key team. But after the third time, we say, okay, so maybe let's open the the sofa in the same phone. Maybe we go to sleep there. And then we heard like a crazy like sounds of misses of like we heard something different, but for us it was like, okay, maybe
like Hammas went crazy this morning. Maybe instead of shooting one missiles, maybe they want to shoot one hundred missiles. But okay, like they are unexpected. And I remember that when me and my father and a mead sat on the couch because we said, okay, apparently we're not going to back to sleep today, so let's open the TV seven am in the morning, let's make some breakfast. And me and my father and a meat was sitting on
the couch opened the TV on the news channel. And the first video that we saw, it's a pickup truck inside the road. It's a city that is like fifteen minutes by car for me, full with Hamas terrorists. You can see the green bandage on the heath and so you understand it's Hamas shooting from the up track inside the world. For me, like to seeing this video is like to sing my worst my worst nightmare come alive because except of my mom told me like when you
will go up, it will not be army. She told me all of my life, everything is okay, then like this will not happen. We are like safe here, like no way that Hamas or the people I will say will hate us I don't want to say other people and will come and try to murder us. And so this is like my worst nightmare come alive, like in the TV in seven am in the morning and they are now here. From the right side of the keyboards,
we have the it was the Nova Music Festival. So we're starting to hear these crazy noises from the boat side. But we don't understand what happened because in the news nothing is reported and the community, what's the book, nothing is as written by the chief, So we say, okay, maybe it's okay, maybe the idea of found the seven pickup truck. But as the minutes passing by, the shooting is starting to be more heavier and more heavier, and
the missiles alarm doesn't stop. So we're starting to understand that this is starting to get closer and closer to my key boots, and we didn't understand the number. We didn't understand what happened in the nova because there is like such a big confusion, and I would think that the first time that we understand that Hamas invaded to my key boots, because we know that Hamas invaded to as well, but we didn't understand that invaded to my key boots until eight twenty four in the morning.
Adn't received the message and the community is WhatsApp that Hermas was inside the kabbots.
So for us to see this like three message, it was like the waking up call for us because until that point we didn't believe that they couldn't succeed so much harmas they could actually enter to the.
Keyboots, unable to lock the safe room.
Because the cell phone is supposed to protect you from missiles and sometimes the missiles making a fire, so you need to be able to go outside from the safe phone, so you can't lock yourself inside.
So her father suggested they go hide in the attic.
So my father bring the letter, and me and my mother and Amit was climbing the letter and stayed up, and my father decided to stay down. I think that my father was over estimated himself and he was thinking that maybe he could confront them, maybe he can awarn us to let us know what happened down because our eyes was blinded because from that point, the service wasn't so good. In the keyboutine. The only pieces of information was from the watterpoop and we didn't have so much
a good reception. So my father was kind of our eyes. But I don't know why he decided to stay down. Maybe he was thinking that he would take the first bullet or something like this, or maybe he could protect us, because he's like he was like the lion that protected his family. So me and my mom and Amite was sitting inside the attic. And it's crazy because I couldn't believe how I experienced this second Holocaust because I was studying, So I was studying, so much about the Holocaust and
about the history of my family. But then I will say, the Holocaust find me. I just celebrated twenty eight and I'm sitting on the attic with my boyfriend and with my mom and just starting to realize that my life is going to be over and that they're going to
murder me. And this time I knew that they come to murder me, and I was like starting to I would say, to conclude my not conclude my life, but to summerize my life, to think about my dreams, the thing that I was like succeed to accomplish, the thing that I that I will not accomplish until until forever. And looking on my boyfriend eyes and just like to sitting in the Holocaust and really liked to feel like Anna Frank it was it was something.
Different contemplating life. She couldn't bear the thought that she or her father would have to die just steps away from each other, if.
That would be my last moment on the sort in the keyboats, I wanted to spend them with my father, and so we decided to jump from the attic. We didn't have the time to bring a letter because in that point in Saturday, we're starting to hear the shooting really closest to my neighborhood.
Ada in a meet and her mom ran to the safe room and reunited with their father, and we.
Sat in the safe room, and we heard a knock on the back door, and we knew that we were next because our neighbors told us that now they're shooting in the home and they can hear Arabic, and our neighbors from the front write us that they are now starting to feel smoke and we're starting to be choking inside the safe rom so we understand that they are now burning my own family house. So we knew that we are next, and we knew that we are alone
now only asking God. So we heard a knock on the front on the back door, and then we heard a second knock on the front door. So my father and Amit was going to hold the door because it was the only only option to prevent him from letting in, and we didn't think about the possibility of that maybe he will shoot on the door and we will be murdered, with thinking to okay, let's hold the door and we
will be safe like this. So I remember that a meeting and my father going to hold the door, and then we heard a shooting a shot, and he actually was shutting shooting on the door on the front door. And by this it was just like going in and we heard him actually like walk inside my home. It's crazy because I felt so hopeless and I was starting to see and my father meanwhile he was like holding the door. I saw my father saying like goodbye for my mom. And my mom and my father have like
a love for the fairy tales. I would say they are like maybe thirty six years by now and they are like in love like teenagers. So to saying my father is like saying goodbye for my mom. I think it was the most time we say hard part because I would say that if my father feeling hopeless now, so there is no hope. And then all of a sudden, we saw the doorknob going down and up, so you understand that he understand that we are in the safe phone.
And now we try to open the door, and my father in a mid to try resisting and resist him and like preventing from letting him. But we didn't swim, We didn't do nothing. We just like say okay, maybe we'll keep quiet and like fright on the door and maybe we'll he will give up. And then maybe after five minutes or so, we didn't sew the door moving, so we think it to ourselves. Okay, maybe he he just raists for a little bit. Maybe he going to call his friends and now they will try to open
the door together. Maybe he climbing the letter and hide us in the attic inside my parents' bedroom and wait for the moment that me and my family will pop out from them a moth from the safe poom and just shoot us. So we was just like being I will say on our guards like admit, and my father didn't hold the door for two hours or so because we couldn't imagine that he would just give up, because we couldn't understand that we will have this luck, because
actually he was walking inside my home. He was trying to find I spanned us, so why he was letting go.
The silence was palpable. They had gone, but they didn't dare move. They stayed in the safe room for another twenty seven hours, terrified and desperate for survival.
So he kept being like that in the in the safe room, without food, without without water, and we have our restroom was a little bucket of the food of my dog. But I'm thinking about this now. It's okay, because when you want to survive, you lose humanity. Every day you just lose it. So only in eleven in the morning the day after after we did it, we didn't eat, we didn't sleep, like me and I meet was like kind of they would say, the protectors of my parents and my own family, because we are the
youngest ones. So we we knew that this is our responsibility to be awake all the night and just to watch on the door. So me and I meet was just like doing a change our position each time, like I was holding the door, a meetside was in the phone, try to get any information from the WhatsApp, and we're switching.
And we didn't slept all the night. So only in eleven in the morning the day after the chap of the keyboots tell us that it's now safe for us to go out of the keyboots and that we need to evacuate it ourselves now to take a small suitcase and just to drove. And I remember that. You really want to think that maybe it was like a bid nightmare or something like this, but to go out from the kyboot and to see all this burnt car of the people, of the young adults. It was celebrating the
Nova party. And just to see their cars like along the road with all the bodies of the young adult was celebrating the Nova. I couldn't deny it. I know it is not It wasn't a nightmare. It was actually the seventh of October.
Dozens of Israelis are dead, hundreds are injured, and Amass claimed to have taken hostages bringing them back to the Gaza Strip.
It's been one horror and tragedy after the next since amas Is killing and kidnapping attack of Israelis ten weeks ago.
The rampaging militants attacked homes with hand grenades, RPGs and gunfire. Then they set them a blaze, hoping to smoke out families hiding inside. Many were burned alive.
It's like a horror movie. To me, it was the scariest thing that's ever happened in my life.
In the days after, as you started to learn more news, what did you learn.
I learned that I don't know if I'm answering, but I learned that I was so lucky because By the days going by, you're starting to understand the numbers. And I'm leaving five minutes back car from Kibbutz Perry. It's less than two miles, I think, so to starting to understand what happened in kibutz Bery.
Kibbutz Berry was massacred. A mass roamed through the small farming village until the evening of October eighth and killed over one hundred citizens. Thirty two hostages were taken from Berry. The damage to the small village can still be seen to this day.
Now my friends, our orphan or did have friends that they are now losing their brother to starting to understand what happened in Keyboots near us that now our bellyhood a friend of mine from the times that back then I used to dance in ballet class, so that our belly is now kidnapp hostages in Gaza. I couldn't understand, like how we survived. So I meet parents living fast sabah. But all the people of the Keyboots can They went
to a lat because we knew it. Like the idea of to us that we need to leave the Gaza envelope now because it's a closed army area, so now everybody needed to leave their homes. When we drove, we said that the twenty minutes in the start of this ride was the most hardest because we just saw, we saw everything. We just saw what happened in October seven. We saw the pickup of armas, we saw the weapon, we opened the news and finally we saw the bodies. We saw all the fire still going on in the
Kibutine because Ramas destroyed so many houses. So I think not like the first twenty minutes was we say the hardest part of the driving to amit parents' house.
I mean when and how did you get back to some version of a normal life.
So in the start, I was with my family in the hotel in a lot for three months, around three or two months. And for the start it was healing for me because I needed to be with people who went through the same thing that I was bent through. So for me to be with my friends because friends as family. For me to be with my friends in a lot in the hotel and just to sit with them each night, just to talk and to be with people that actually understand what I've been through, it was
essential essential for me. But then after maybe one month and half, I'm feeling that I'm still in shiva, you know, like shiva that you're sitting and you just like seven
days about the one who lost. And I think that for me to sit in shiva for one month and a half, it was too much already because I couldn't recover from the trauma because each day I was like speaking about about what happened and talking about what happened in the keyboats, and each day we heard about another person that idea for discovered that he was murdering in the seventh of October. So I knew that I need
to start recover the trauma. So for me, I was going back to tell I was starting to go back to my work in November, I think, but to go to the university I was startying, I think only in December because I couldn't I wouldn't be I was not
able to sit in the classroom. But for me, like I would say, it was after the one month and a half it I was in a lat it was essential to be with people that was not being through what I've been through in October seven because I needed to do something else to help me recovered and not just to diving inside the trauma.
And still you've decided to share your story with others. What made you make that decision? I mean, I can see that it's hard for you to retell it. It wasn't very long ago, and I think it'll probably say with you for a long time, maybe forever. Like what made you decide to start sharing it?
I think that the first reason is because I mentioned that I was traveling in South America. I met a lot of friends from Europe and from the world, and after October seven, I felt that people not seeing the right image. So I felt it I must go in to share my story from my eyes, from a woman that grew up in Gaza, envelope, from a woman that experienced seventh of October inside of home, because I needed to tell the truth because somehow people believe to this nonsense.
And I think that the second because I think that's to go up and does the envelope make me super strong? And not many things try to I will say, to touch me or to excited me. So I started to feel like a like that I have this kind of shield,
this kind of wall. I knew that if I will start to speak about my trauma, it will help me to feel It will help me to connect to the trauma and not to put a wall between me and what happened and just let me experience this, because when you grow up and envelope and when you grow up next to the organization, you used to put a wall and you try to be the strongest and the strongest
as you can. But this time, I was thinking that if I will share what happened in Octorous seven, it will help me feel more and help me to connect more to this trauma, and maybe if I will connect to the trauma, I will starting to heal from it.
Has that happened?
I think yes, I think it really helped me because even now when I speak with you, I'm starting to remind in a few things that I didn't I was thinking about him until now, about the letter about people that was happening, about things that happened inside the mamad. So each time when I'm speaking about this trauma, I'm thinking about many miracles that happened on Saturday. So it's
helped me to understand, and it's helped me too. I will say, to take this trauma more close to me, I will say, because sometimes when you look on trauma, you look about a trauma of other person. But now I'm starting to understand this isn't my trauma. It's happened to me, not happened to other person. Because when you experience this I will say, life changing events, it's really hard to understand that it's happened to you, not or your friends or something like this.
So on this show we talk about how these things that happen outside of us, like these experiences that we go through, change our perspective, like the way that we see the world, and then they change our actions as a result. So how do you think your perspective has changed, and do you think it's changed what you may do with your life.
When I was like, I would say that I'm towards myself. I'm really judgment judgmental, And my teacher, I would say, in the office of school told me, and then you don't need to be a you don't need the enemies. You are the own enemy of yourself. And it's funny because she knew me only three months, but she could really like see through me because I would said it as a I don't want to say as a woman,
but as a as a human being. I'm a super judgmental towards myself, and I was like judging myself by how I'm looking like on my appearance, what is like my successful how I success to doing this, how I managed to accomplish, to accomplish that mission of myself, Like all of my life was judging myself and telling myself and then you're not good in this, You're not good
in debt. And I'm feeling that not only meetinging like this like many people thinking and just I would say living their life by quick and to have so much, I would say judge and criticism to them to themselves. So when I was actually sitting inside the ethic, I was thinking to myself like like why I was so bad to myself? Like why I decided to live until now without peace between myself and I needed to to start to do a piece inside of me and starting to see the good in life and not to judge
myself in the thing that I don't accomplish. And I need to be proud in myself. I need to proud in in the in my personality in edin because I spend so much time in my life to think that I'm not good enough, that I need to be better, and I was promised to myself that if I will survive it, I was starting to do a change because I'm twenty eight and it's not young, it's not old, it's in the middle. So I have this I will say,
a good battle. But I have this battle now inside myself because I know that I need to do this change, because I feel so lucky that I will survived October seven because so many people wasn't survived and I got a second chance to try to live my life and try to be proud of myself. And I tell them to myself that I'm too much old for this, I'm too much old for that. And then cha, I shift the way I'm looking now on my life, and I said to myself, Okay, I'm only twenty eight and I
have so much to accomplience from now. So from that point, I'm starting to do this process with myself to first to take everything in proportion. I would say it helped me to get a perspective when you're in my life.
It's helped me to understand that the life is short and if I want to do something or to accomplish something, I need to do it, and that I need to start believing in myself, to love in myself because by experience October seven, I believe that I can do whatever I want because by being in such I would say, a hard moment in my life to really feel the debt and to be in in that moment that you're starting to memorize your life and you think about like the good thing that you made, the bad thing that
you made. You're really starting from the bottom. So I think from going through this more focused to my future. I'm more focused and I know that everything is achievable
by working hard, by loving yourself, by believing yourself. And it's just like make me thinking about my life because I spent a lot of time of my life to think that I'm not, that I'm not good enough, that I'm not I would says as a child that grow up, you don't think that you're sometimes beautiful and you so just I was like thinking, like looking about my past, and I'm telling to myself that I need to stop bringing me down, that I need to be the best
cheerleader of myself, that I need to be the best believer on myself, not my mom. I'm saying that, like I'm going from the end to the start. Now by starting to do this, we say changing my perspective and life. And I know it's not easy. Sometimes I'm still struggling sometimes, like many times, I'm still have a lot of criticism on myself and about decision that I made. But I try to do more peace with myself and to breed into it. And I know to do a change in
your life is not easy. And I'm twenty eight, so I was establishing. I was I established myself until now, so to do this change it's hard, but I can do it. And so I'm like, one step at a time, I will be more peaceful with myself.
Thank you so much for joining us.
First, I want to say thank you for you and letting me to hear my voice and to speak about myself. It makes me really excited and really emotional that you let me to share my story in this platform. So thank you so much, Emily, and to all I will say the woman that hear me out right now, all the Jewish women that's feeling for me right now, like believe in yourself and just thinking how awesome are you? There is nothing that is too far.
Thank you so much, Thank you so much. Emily Eden has returned back to Israel and is trying to resume her normal life, though nothing seems normal anymore. I want to thank Eden for sharing her deeply personal story with us. I feel lucky to be able to share stories like hers on my platform. Take care and talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of she Pivots. If you made it this far, you're a true pivoter,
so thanks for being part of this community. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did leave us a rating, please be nice and tell your friends about us. To learn more about our guests, follow us on Instagram at she Pivots the Podcast, or sign up for our newsletter where you can get exclusive behind the scenes content, or on our website she Pivots the Podcast Talk to you next week. I endorse she Pivots