When Ilya Taraschansky points at his son’s name on the silver cover of a newly inaugurated Torah scroll in Kibbutz Be’eri’s synagogue, he tears up. Mr. Taraschansky, 47, still cannot fathom that his 15-year-old son was brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists in the October 7 massacre that claimed the lives of 1,200 Israelis including 100 residents of Kibbutz Be’eri.

A resident of Kibbutz Be’eri for nearly 30 years, Mr. Taraschansky — who is currently living in Tel Aviv — told the New York Sun that never in his wildest nightmares did he imagine the horrors awaiting his family on that deadly Saturday morning. “No one on this kibbutz ever walked around armed,” he explained. “We believed we were living in a peaceful, pastoral paradise.”

“I could never even fathom that one day I would become a bereaved father and a homeless refugee. The only thing I really knew of war was that my grandfather fought in World War II,” said Mr. Taraschansky, who immigrated from eastern Russia to Israel when he was 20. “I was a man of peace living an illusion that we were protected here.”

He started that Saturday morning with a phone call to the lifeguard of the kibbutz’s pool, to decide on the pool’s closing hours that day. With the sound of the rocket alarm, followed by explosions at 6:30 a.m., the family entered the safe room and then returned again around 10:30 a.m. as the gunshots grew louder. “We could hear the terrorists and the gunfire getting closer and closer,” said Mr. Taraschansky.

“I locked the safe room using my hands to hold the handle down. The leverage did not allow the terrorists to enter the door,” he recalled. “This saved us. Our other fortune is that the terrorists didn’t fire bullets through the door.”  

As the Hamas terrorists attempt to break into the safe room, Mr. Taraschanky’s two children, Gali, 13, and Lior hid under the bed while their father, a big, stocky man, continued to hold down the handle. At some point the handle broke and the terrorists came back with work tools including a drill and saw. “We had no one to turn to,” he said. “I kept sending text messages to the kibbutz security to save us. The terrorists were determined to hurt us. They just would not retreat.”

The Hamas terrorists were able to create an opening at some point in the door, and they threw homemade grenades into the safe room, injuring Lior, who was sheltering Gali with his body.

“Everything shattered. Our house was on fire. Gali was able to get up but her pajamas were full of Lior’s blood. There was heavy smoke. We could see nothing. We jumped from the safe room’s window into the unknown. I ran one way into the direction of the olive groves, and Gali ran to the neighbor’s house.”

At this point, Mr. Taraschansky and his ex-wife, Reumah, also a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri, would know nothing of their children’s fate for 17 days. They would only later find out their son’s body was found and identified and that Gali had been abducted by Hamas terrorists and taken to Gaza. She was later returned on November 29 as part of the prisoners-hostage exchange.

“I hid near the olive groves for hours,” said Mr. Taraschansky. “I had on only my underwear, having had no time to run upstairs to get dressed when the attack on the kibbutz began. I waited for hours for help.”

In the dark of night, Mr. Taraschansky finally had a glimmer of hope. He could hear perfectly spoken Hebrew and see flashlights. Two brothers, Menachem and Elchanan Kalmenson, along with their nephew, Itiel, had traveled to the war-ravaged kibbutz from their homes in the south Hebron hills to aid the helpless kibbutz residents. But when Ilya emerged from his hiding place, they were unsure whether he was a kibbutz resident or a terrorist.

“I told them my name was Ilya. Elchanan heard my accent,” Mr. Taraschansky said. “They transported me in an armored jeep to safety and then continued all night and into the morning, rescuing more and more residents. Menachem even came to visit me in Tel Aviv a couple of weeks after saving my life.”

“What we saw was horrifying. Elderly people locked for hours hiding in their safe rooms. The bodies of dead children scattered on lawns. Charred homes up in smoke,” Menachem Kalmenson told the New York Sun.

“We knew we had to help our brothers in Be’eri,” explained Menachem Kalmanson. “It was an easy decision to make but we were also very afraid.”

Elchanan Kalmanson, 42, a father of five, had extensively trained in anti-terror security operations. He and Menachem came across Mr. Taraschansky as they searched the perimeters of Kibbutz Be’eri during nightfall, using an armored jeep to transport Mr. Taraschansky and many others to safety as they made rescue rounds to the kibbutz.

The Kalmanson brothers saved at least 100 residents of Kibbutz Be’eri, which initially had a population of 1,100 people. They worked for 14 hours going from home to home, sometimes rescuing whole families while having to battle the terrorists who had taken over some of the homes.  On Monday morning, October 8, a terrorist shot Elchanan dead, while injuring Menachem as they attempted yet another rescue mission on the kibbutz.

The Kalmanson family recently held an inauguration of a new Torah scroll in the memory of Elchanan and all those who fell in Kibbutz Be’eri, including Lior Taraschansky, for the community’s synagogue. Hundreds welcomed the new Torah scroll, including secular and religious Israelis, survivors of the Hamas onslaught, IDF soldiers, kibbutz members, and families of the bereaved and fallen.

“This Torah scroll represents more than just written words,” said Menachem Kalmanson, who is religious and lives in Otniel. “It represents  our connection to each other as a nation and to our land.  It gives us our purpose and our common ground beyond the divisions of the moment,” he said.

“The book of Genesis begins with a story of a family and how a nation came out of that family. Elchanan is part of that story and he got his sense of purpose from this Biblical text.”

“We miss him very much,” concluded his brother.