Today was the longest ride of the trip. 68 miles. Although we had a choice-ride 40 miles and then Bear Witness at the Nova Site, or ride 68 miles. Jackie Bore Witness, but I rode all 68 miles because I had been to the Nova site and the Kibbutz KFar Aza in the spring of April 2024.
In the photos above fro our pre-lunch ride, Jackie pointed out she is looking relaxed and I look like I am being tortured. Which covers the feeling of pedaling in the desert. 84 degrees in the sun today. Yet tomorrow we are supposed to be introduced to what riding in the desert truly means. We did have lunch at a beautiful kibbutz and were treated to some music by members of the crew who are graduates from Arava. I was also amused by the sign warning of Bicycles Ahead
Below the rest of the post from today you can see Jackie’s photos from the Nova site and a link to my post with more photos and a video from my visit last year. I wanted to let you know what happened during the day before and after the Nova visit to share all of our experiences of the day, and then give you notes and photos to review.
This afternoon, before we went to lunch and split between riders and bearing witness at the NOVA site, I was connecting with a few of the crew, young college students/graduates of Arava. They were showing us the stickers with one photo per sticker on the gas tank at the gas station during our rest stop, and translating the quotes fro each of the hostages. One had said, you live every day but you die only once. I started tearing up, and he asked if I wanted a sticker. I told him yes of course, thinking it would be a sticker of one of the hostages. Instead, he brought a roll of stickers he kept in his car with images like these.
I chose the word Bayit, which means home. The image depicts how close Hebrew and Arabic are. He told me many people show the similarities, but this artist wanted to create stickers to give away and turn it into a public art project. I was blown away that this is how the young Arava graduates are processing the tragedy of October 7th and the war in Gaza between Hamas and Netanyahu that is causing so much pain and suffering.
Tonight, after our grueling day, we arrived at a beautiful kibbutz. We are learning more about the still vibrant kibbutzim community. Dinner was fantastic, but we were exhausted. We crashed early, since this is our ride for the next day. Love, Sarah and Jackie
Photos and reflections from the Nova Memorial of October 7th, 2023
Additional photos and reflections from my post from last year which was 6 months after October 7th, the site of the Nova festival massacre.
Terrorists shot people dead as they were running and driving away, some hiding in ditches and drainage canals and getting shot like monkeys in a barrel.
Our guide Y first had us gather together. He distributed laminated cards with the story of a group of four people from that day. It’s hard to process the stories and terror of 300 people, but he wanted us to see the world from the vantage point of one group of people. The harrowing account of being there at dawn to celebrate and then realizing something was terribly wrong. Trying to figure out how to escape when all avenues were blocked by terrorists shooting at them. Splitting into two pairs, by luck finding an escape route and then going back into the terror to try to save their friends. Praying their whatsapp would work to find the location of their friends.
Y also gave us a laminated card with the words to Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem which means The Hope.
We noticed there was an old man playing the saxophone seated near the memorial installation. Our guide is the best in Israel, often spontaneous and improvising our days. He asked us if it was OK to go over and ask the man to say Kaddish and sing Hatikvah with us. Perhaps he had lost a family member and might or might not want to pray with us.
Turns out, the man was also a tour guide. He didn’t have a personal, direct familial connection to someone who had been massacred, but he comes here twice a week to play sax for his soul. It was beautiful and heart wrenching to say Kaddish and sing Hatikvah at the site of the Nova massacre.
Video of us: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m0LJOE_uW4gJT28ledR0DgH8W5qObF76/view?usp=sharing
Additional resource:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31160267/
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A better future 
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