Books coverage is supported by a generous grant from The Milton and Sophie Meyer Fund.
Palo Alto resident Simcha Toledano Moyal was visiting her youngest daughter in London last October when her oldest daughter called from Israel, telling them to turn on the news.
It was the morning of Oct. 7. Moyal immediately knew her native Israel was facing a terrible threat, and so was her daughter serving in the Israeli military, and her son-in-law who was called up to the reserves. It took Moyal three days to find a seat on an El Al flight to Israel, where her husband joined her in caring for the grandchildren while their parents were away.
In Israel, Moyal found herself glued to social media, trying to make sense of the violence by finding others who shared her grief, fear and hope.
To make that happen, she did what she knows best. A sculptor turned artists’ representative, Moyal has been bringing the work of Israeli artists to the Bay Area and elsewhere for more than 15 years, most recently through her company, Israeli Visual Arts. She decided to use her curatorial experience and her contacts in the art world to do something to help her country.
The result was “The Scream,” a compilation of poems, thoughts and images she found on Facebook and Instagram by Israelis expressing the impact of the Oct. 7 Hamas rampage and subsequent Israel-Hamas war. Printed first in its original Hebrew and now with an added English translation, the publication is a fundraising project to benefit Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the communities along the Gaza border hardest hit by the Hamas terrorists.
“I saw what people were writing, and I chose the pieces that touched me, that said what I was trying to say,” she told J. in August. She stopped collecting pieces about three months into the war and then began the laborious task of getting permission to publish from every contributor chosen.
At just 23 pages, it’s a booklet rather than a book. Moyal calls it a “concept publication.” Some of the contributions are from well-known artists and writers, although Moyal didn’t necessarily know that when she chose them. Singer-songwriters Astar Shamir and Noam Horev both have poems in “The Scream,” as does poet Agi Mishol.
Most of the contributions, however, were posted on social media by ordinary Israelis who, Moyal said, “expressed their cries from the depths of their hearts.”
There is a poem about what a kidnapped child might have been thinking while sitting alone in a Hamas tunnel. There is a last letter home from a religiously observant soldier who died in battle. There are photographs of demonstrations by hostages’ families, displaying “Bring Them Home” banners.
Some of the selections are just a few words. In a cry to God’s seeming indifference, one person writes, referring first to the trauma of the Yom Kippur War and then Oct. 7, “We are the children of ’73, the parents of ’23. You promised!”
Israeli resiliency is poignantly expressed in another selection, which reads, “When the red light changes to green, I wipe away my tears and drive on.”
Moyal considers the work a Zionist project, saying in an email, “This book takes readers on an emotional journey through a difficult and profound period, and together with the images, evokes understanding, empathy, and support for our Jewish nation.”
She has no personal connection to Kfar Aza. When deciding what to raise money for, she looked at the websites of various kibbutzim that listed their needs. Kfar Aza had a big gap between what it needed and what it had raised, she said, so she contacted its leaders and set up the partnership.
Later, she found out that the graphic designer she hired for the project had family in Kfar Aza. “There’s a reason for everything,” she said.
Moyal’s goals are modest. The first edition of 50 booklets sold quickly, mostly to friends via word of mouth. So far, she has raised $10,000 for the kibbutz. A second edition of 100, with English translations next to the Hebrew, is available now. She’s in talks with a nonprofit in Holland interested in translating it into Dutch and hopes to get it translated into other languages.
So far, she handles sales herself, mailing a book to anyone who shows her a receipt of a donation made to a nonprofit raising money for Kfar Aza.
But the amount of money she raises isn’t as important as sharing the pain and hope of Israelis with as many people as possible, Moyal said. Two of the songs in the booklet were used by the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto at this year’s Yom HaZikaron (Israel Memorial Day) event, she noted. She will read from the book at a Hebrew-language evening event at the JCC on Oct. 19.
“If I can also raise money for the kibbutz,” she said, “it’s a win-win.”