By Shannon Lukens.
“An Evening with a Survivor of Oct. 7” was the name of a presentation in Steamboat Springs Wednesday evening. 28-year-old Yoni Viloga was with his family at their kibbutz in Israel when terrorists infiltrated their neighborhood. Viloga shared his account of what happened that day in the presentation at Library Hall.
The evening started with a welcome from Rabbi Isaac Abelsky with the Chabad of Steamboat.
He said, “You don’t fight people with evil.” He added that we are committing to the future where such atrocities are never committed, and that we have survived one of the darkest chapters of recent history.
Maia Stone is a Wexner Foundation Fellow. She welcomed the crowd saying, “We have to live by our values We have to tell our story.”
Yoni Viloga then spoke of what happened on Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel. He was visiting his parents in their kibbutz which has 1,110 people. They started hearing automatic machine guns that morning and they didn’t understand what was happening. They invited their neighbors to come to their home since they had two guns. Sixteen neighbors came and stayed with them in their bomb shelter.
As they prepared, they started receiving messages from other friends in Israel that people were being raped and were dying.
“How is that possible that someone would want to kill us?”
Yoni said he and his family started looking for a place to hide. They heard that other people who had been hiding were dying from smoke inhalation.
Yoni’s mom hid in a box in the laundry room of their home.
He said that each kibbutz has an emergency team to fight, when needed. Their kibbutz had 12 members and they went to the main gate. They were able to shoot back at the terrorists.
But the terrorists got inside, and took things and killed people. “They killed innocent people in their cars. They tried to kill and destroy everything they saw.”
He said the army eventually came to fight against the terrorists.
When it was safe to leave, he said everything was a huge mess and it “looked like an apocalypse. No one knew what was going on.”
They filled four cars with their family and friends, in hopes that some of the cars could get out. When they went past the main gate, they saw dead bodies in cars. They continued on the main road and decided to help other people if they saw them. The plan was to continue on to Tel Aviv because they had family there.
Yoni said his military unit called him to join their team.
His grandfather was with them. He is 94 years old and came from Poland. All of his grandfather’s family died because of the Nazis.
“We should stay strong for all the people. We cannot give up.”
He said that we will do everything to protect our people, and “this is our mission.”
He added, “We should not feel guilty or shamed. I just want to live my life. I don’t want to fight with anyone.”
His message is that it is hard to be Jewish in America right now. “We are stronger together in a community. No one can beat us. Don’t feel guilty about who you are. We aren’t going to give up. We are going to stay. We all have to have the same mission. People should know what is going on right now. Tell the story to all the people you know. It is our story.”
Shoshana Rice is the co-founder of the non-profit “Faces of Oct. 7th.” She brought Yoni Viloga to Steamboat Springs. Her group has brought 15 survivors to North America to do more than 250 appearances. She said her group is “combatting anti-semitism through face-to-face connections.” She also said it is apolitical to bear witness to a terrorist attack.
The evening ended with a Question & Answer session with Rabbi Kolby with Har Mishpacha. She told Yoni, “We are grateful for survivors like you who lived to tell your story.”
Rabbi Kolby asked Yoni what we should do. He said, “All of us need to study and learn more about the history of Israel. Share it with people who are not Jewish. Explain to other people about our history in Israel.”