Noam Kalush has actually spoken on our podcast once before, when we interviewed him and colleague who are very active in the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. In the course of that conversation, several months ago, Noam mentioned that he, his wife and their children made a harrowing escape from their community, Netiv Ha’Asara, which sits on Gaza’s northern border.

In the map above, you can see Netiv Ha’asara in he red rectangle just north of Gaza, while in the purple rectangles, you’ll find the names of some of the devastated kibbutzim we have all been hearing about for the past 19 months.

In today’s conversation, on the eve of Passover, the Festival of Freedom, Noam Kalush reminds us once again of the fragility of freedom, of the narrow escapes that many Israelis made that day, and how even though these people are generally not counted as injured or victims, they and their children are all living lives that will never be the same.

Noam’s story and personality offer a glimpse into not only what happened on October 7th, but into the resilience, love and wisdom of the people on whom we will all depend to rebuild the south and the country at large.

Noam Kalush is an active member of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

On October 7th his moshav, Nativ Ha’Asara, was invaded and he was stranded for hours, along with his wife and two small children, until they managed to escape.

He worked in the Hi-tech industry for ten years and now is doing his PhD in computational biology in Ben Gurion University. In addition, he is a published author and has written three books, and is currently working on his fourth, all of them in Hebrew.

Noam’s Hebrew books are available on Amazon here.

The link at the top of this posting will take you to the full recording of our conversation; below you will find a transcript for those who prefer to read, prepared for our paid subscribers.

A quick reminder that Passover starts this coming weekend. For the week of Passover, out of respect for those observing both days of the holiday at the beginning and at the end, we will be on a reduced schedule.

People who have been listening to Israel from the inside for a while have actually already had the experience of meeting today's guest, Noam Kalush. He is part of the staff of the Hostage Family Forum. And we interviewed two people from the Hostage Family Forum about the work that they were doing and especially the digital work that they were doing to try to bring the experience of Hostage Square in an online forum to people all around the world. That work is still going on as we'll hear from Noam in a minute. But I've invited Noam to come back and speak with us today because first of all, he's an author, and, you know, authors like authors. So Noam is an interesting guy who's written three books, working on a fourth, all fiction, all the creations of his mind, which is fascinating, given everything else that you'll hear that he does in a minute. And, and because Noam and his family actually survived the morning of October 7th, and I wanted our listeners to have an opportunity to hear another vantage point of what happened on October 7th, in this particular case, not in Kfar Aza, not in Nir Oz, not in Beeri, but in a place called Netiv Ha'Asara, which is towards the north part of the. Of the Gaza Strip. And we'll hear about his story as well. So, Noam, first of all, thank you so much for coming back to have another conversation.Thank you for inviting me.And let's start by having you just remind everybody who you are. We'll go into a little bit more detail this time about yourself.Sure. So I'm, first of all, I'm the father of two sweet children, boy and a daughter. And Professionally, I'm a PhD student in the field of computational biology in Bar Ilan University.What is it? Computational biology?Computational biology.Like, okay, so in one sentence, for a total amateur, what does that mean?So, first of all, my background, my bachelor, my master's degree are in mathematics and computer science, but more to the theory of computer science. And what I do in computational biology is trying to harness methodologies and theories for mathematics and computer science to better understand or even possibly affect the functionalities of, let's say, the human cell or any biological process. So this really in a nutshell.Okay. And your inclination is more towards academia or more towards the world of actually industry and so forth?I think more to the academia or to the theory.And how far along are you in this?I'm pretty much in the beginning. I started in 2022, and then the last year, due to the events of October 7th and the fact that we were evacuated to temporary housing in Tel Aviv. Let's say that for a year afterwards the studies were put on hold. Only in the past few months I managed to get back to it. So I'm in the second year.Okay, so you're working with the hostage family forum still. You are a father of two kids, a boy and a girl, and you're working on this PhD. We're going to come back to your books in a little bit. How you find time for all of this, I have to say, is a little bit mind boggling, but we'll talk about that. Okay, we can talk about that as well. But I want to hear more about you. So tell us about you and your wife, where you're from in Israel, how you ended up in Netiv Ha'Asara. Give us some background, a little bit also about Netiv Ha'Asara, but you can give us more of your own background.So Netiv Ha'Asara. I would say that I was born, my wife as well, by the way, we were both born in Sinai when it was part of Israel. Yeah. She lived in the former Netiv Ha'Asara, which was a moshav, a village there.Where was it in the Sinai?Ah, well, I'm not sure exactly. I think in the northern part, I think, but I'm not sure.Okay.I was a year and a half old when they evacuated, so I don't remember it. I was in another village and, and both our families eventually stayed in Gaza's envelope. Her family and the other community members reestablished Netiv Ha'Asara in Gaza's envelope. My family and other members established a new place called Ein Ha'Besor, a new village which is not so new now. It's 40 years old, and we lived there ever since. Of course we moved all around, you know, we were in the army, we lived in the center. And after we married and it was 2014, my wife was about to give birth to our daughter. We moved to Netiv Ha'Asara next to her parents, we get some help. It was right after Tzuk Eitan, a very massive military operation. And we thought we'll have a year, two years of, you know, of quiet. So it wasn't, it didn't take too long until they started launching missile, but still we said it's a good opportunity. And you asked what was the origin of the name. Back in 69' there was a chopper accident where 10 Israeli soldiers were killed. So the original village in Sinai was named after them. And of course they kept the name of the one that is in Gaza's envelope.Yeah. A lot of people may be interested in knowing that there's a lot of places in Israel, that if they have a number in them, in the name of the town, the number is usually the number of people who fell. For those who don't want to spend time looking at it now and online, you can see that it's on the line, the line that runs east, west at the very top of the Gaza Strip. So it's north of Jabalia, basically. Jabalia is probably, I guess, or Beit Lahia, the biggest Arab towns in Gaza near it. And it's the southernmost Israeli town on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip. So it's not in the Gaza envelope where most people think of it as on the being on the east side of Gaza. This is on the north side of Gaza.Right, right, right on the northern border.And so you guys moved to Netiv Ha'Asara in what year again?2014.So that right after the 2014 dust up with Hamas, which back then we thought was a terrible situation, we just didn't have what to compare it to nine years later, of course, which was much more horrible. So now you said that your son, your daughter was. Was your son or your daughter?My daughter.Your daughter is the oldest one.So she was born in December 2014.So she was eight. She was eight.She was eight. And your son was four. Four. All right. And you were all home in Netiv Ha'Asara. Right?yeah. We were home.Okay, so everybody says 6:29. Right? That's the time that everybody talks about in Israel. 6:29 was when the Nova party was invaded by missiles. 6:29 was when people came across the border. But not everything happened to everybody at 6:29. They got to other places later. So if you don't mind, and I'm sure you've done it before, and I'm sure it's not easy, but still, if you can kind of describe for us either the night of the 6th, because it was a chag, it was a holiday. So who was there? And then how things unfolded on the morning of October 7th.So I want to talk first about October 3. Everybody talks about October 7. I want to talk about October 3 to start with October 3, because everybody asks how can it be that the Hamas fooled us and our intelligence didn't understand that they're going to attack us, and how didn't we see the signs? And, you know, I don't understand this notion because they did it in the open. They trained in the open. They didn't even hide the fact that they are going to attack us. They said it, they claimed it. An...

Yesterday was Day 550. On the eve of the Festival of Freedom, the story of one family and their harrowing escape.

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