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Devastated by 7 October, then a cancer diagnosis: the Israeli family reaching out to the diaspora
Five family members were murdered by Hamas and now Sivan Zohar Alkobi's husband has bowel cancer. Jewish News speaks to the older sister leading efforts to support them
“Three generations, five graves.” Ayelet Cohen Zohar tells Jewish News about the day that changed her life forever. On 7 October, 2023, during the Hamas terrorist attack on Kibbutz Nahal Oz, five members of her family were brutally murdered: her brother, Yaniv Zohar; his wife, Yasmin; their daughters, Keshet and Tehelet; and Haim Livne, Yasmin’s father and the grandfather of Keshet, Tehelet, and Ariel.
Ariel, Yaniv and Yasmin’s son, just 13 years old at the time, was the only member of his immediate family to survive, because of a twist of fate: he’d decided to go jogging that morning. In a single day, he lost his parents, his two sisters, and his grandfather.
Since 7 October, Ariel has lived with his Ayelet, his aunt, who adopted him and made her home his home.
Another aunt, Sivan Zohar Alkobi, Ayelet and Yaniv’s younger sister, has also been there to surround Ariel with love and support and help him navigate a new reality — all while carrying the weight of her own devastating loss.
But for Sivan, there has been no respite from tragedy.
In yet another devastating blow, her husband Eli was recently diagnosed with bowel cancer. He has begun a prolonged course of treatment at Sheba Hospital as part of his fight against the disease.
Older sister Ayelet says that the weight of responsibility falls heavily on Sivan’s shoulders; a mother of two young children, neither she nor Eli are working because they are at the hospital every day.
“Eli is in the hospital bed most of the day. He was very active as a father, as a husband, as a person. He has helped the family very much in these three difficult years. Difficult for my parents, for me, for Sivan, for everyone, and because of the situation, they’ve closed their company, and they are not working.”
Ayelet is now leading efforts to raise 1.5 million NIS (around £370k) to provide her beloved sister with some sense of “quiet and to try and give her and her children a good life.”
She adds: “We are not getting any support from the country. Nothing at all. Most of the time, I say that nobody sees us. We have to handle everything by ourselves; it’s very difficult because it’s not one person that was murdered. Three generations is very, very heavy.”
It is a struggle, she admits, every morning “to get out of the bed and to try to do everything to give everyone in your family a good life, it’s very difficult. Until now, I didn’t have the time to grieve; to grieve about my brother, my sister-in-law, my nephews. I stopped working on 7 October. My only focus in Ariel’s recovery. I’m around him and my parents every day. My father is a Holocaust survivor. He is 93 years. old. He lost all his family in the Holocaust.”
At this point, Ayelet’s voice breaks. “I’m sorry”, she says, struggling to regain control.
“My father,” she continues after a pause, “has now again lost his whole family. His son, my brother, was all his beginnings in Israel. He was the love of his life. There used to be 11 members in my family, [now] there are six. It’s too much, too much.”
The fundraising campaign, created by Sivan’s family and friends, is not for medical treatment, which is covered by insurance.
With neither husband nor wife working, any financial support will give them the ability to focus on the difficult months ahead; to provide stability whilst Eli undergoes treatments and surgeries, give the family time and space to gradually return to some semblance of everyday life, and ease some of the economic pressure that has accumulated after nearly three years of unimaginable emotional and economic upheaval.
“We cannot undo what happened on 7 October”, their friends have written on the campaign page. “We cannot bring back the people they lost. But we can help make sure that, as they face yet another crisis, Sivan and her family do not have to carry the financial burden alone.”
Ayelet says she feels the presence of her murdered family around her “every day. I talk with them every day. I pray for them to give me the power every day, because I don’t think I can go through this journey without it.”
She asks: “Do you know the sentence in the Bible that says:, “Kol hamatzil nefesh achat, ke’ilu hitzil olam maleh? Whoever saves one life, it is as if he saved the entire world. Sivan needs this help, and I wish that someone will raise it and give them the future and the opportunity to get through all these difficult things that they have on their shoulders.”
- To support Sivan and her family, click here.
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