Special Guest At Rockland Holiday Event Killed At Concert In Israel

NEW YORK — A month ago, a young, injured Israeli veteran visited the Hudson Valley to talk and dance with 300 women engaged in the annual Mega Challah Bake for the high holidays sponsored by the Chabad Centers of Rockland County.

Today they are mourning the death of that special guest, Raz Mizrahi.

"This is devastating," said Devorah Gancz, program director for the Chabad Jewish Center of Suffern.

Every year the Chabad centers do something to bring unique cheer to the event, Gancz told Patch. "This year Raz and her friend Eliya Haruvi joined us. Inspired us, uplifted us with her resilience."

Mizrahi was full of life and light, Gancz said.

"To have walked into a room for three hours and have impacted our lives so strongly," she said. "We danced with her. She filled the room with such joy she made each of the women there feel like she was their sister."

In her speech, Mizrahi told the group her own story. She was on patrol at a street corner when a terrorist rammed a car into her.

"She told about being under the car thinking her life was over," Gancz said. "After many surgeries she was able to re-learn how to walk. She decided she wanted to use her experience to help others."

Mizrahi began working with Belev Echad, a global movement dedicated to helping wounded men and women of the Israeli Defense Forces, which organized her trip to Rockland.

In her speech at the Crowne Plaza Sept. 12, Mizrahi said, "The enemy couldn’t shatter my spirit. I’m still standing, I’m still fighting, and I’m more in love with Israel than ever before."

But last weekend, the 20-year-old was celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot at a music festival in southern Israel.

Saturday's attack on the open-air Tribe of Nova music festival is believed to be the worst civilian massacre in Israeli history, with at least 260 dead and a still undetermined number taken hostage, the Associated Press reported. Israel vowed an unprecedented offensive against Hamas, after the Islamic militant group's fighters broke through the border fence Saturday and stormed into the country’s south.

The Israeli military said Oct. 11 that more than 1,200 people, including 155 soldiers, have died in Israel since then. In Gaza, 1,055 people have been killed, including 260 children and 230 women, according to authorities there. Israel says hundreds of Hamas fighters are among them. Thousands have been wounded on both sides, the AP reported.

More than 150 people have also been kidnapped by Hamas and other militant groups, according to the AP. The armed wing of Hamas has warned it will kill a hostage every time Israel’s military bombs civilian targets without warning.

"For two days we knew she was missing and we were just praying and praying," Gancz said. "We knew she was in hiding or dead or one of the captives."

On Tuesday they heard the news that Raz, daughter of Gal & Nirit Mizrahi, had been killed.

"What’s hurting me the most — the chance that we had the honor of meeting this beautiful soul, we’re so hurting from this loss, and how much harder it is for those who knew her well," Gancz said. "And that’s happening thousands of times over. Beautiful souls being taken away for the fact that they’re Jewish.

"We feel so lucky to have had the honor of meeting such a hero, such a strong resilient Jewish woman in the last days of her life. She was brought into our lives to uplift us and now we’re charged to carry on her light and her resilience and her love for Israel."

Gancz was actually supposed to be traveling to Israel in two weeks with 15 women for a mom’s birthright trip. Now some members of the group are making flower bouquets for American mothers whose children have been called into the army as reservists, and others are gathering supplies to send to soldiers in the field.

"We’re being targeted as a Jewish people, and we’re all activating our Jewish pride, our brotherhood and sisterhood, to be there for each other," she said.

Gancz asked women to light Shabbat candles this week in Mizrahi's memory.

"Hopefully we’ll have a few hundred women keeping her light shining," she said.