On Oct. 6, 2023, Mor Ynon hosted a family dinner at her Tel Aviv home. Around midnight, her parents, Bilha and Ya’akov, left for their home in Netiv Ha’asara, a town on the Gaza border, about an hour’s drive south of Tel Aviv. It was the last time she saw them alive.
When her parents didn’t return her calls after around 7:30 on the morning of Oct. 7, Ynon managed to reach one of their neighbors.
“She saw that my parents’ house was completely burnt to the ground,” Ynon told around 300 people on April 9 at the JCC of San Francisco. They came to hear from members of the Parents Circle Families Forum, a jointly run group of Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost loved ones in the violence of the long-running conflict. “We learned that at around 7:45 a.m., two Hamas people entered my parents’ house, shot them and set the house on fire.”
She sat shiva in a “state of shock.”
“Not only did I lose both of my parents at the same time, so suddenly and under such brutal circumstances, but my entire sense of self security was gone. It was very, very difficult,” Ynon said. “However, we thought that revenge for the death of our parents would just escalate the cycle of violence even further and will bring more death on both sides.”
Ynon joined Parents Circle a few months later, wanting to connect with Palestinians who had also experienced loss yet still hoped that reconciliation and peace was possible. She has since become the Israeli board chair of Parents Circle, which also has a Palestinian board chair, as well as offices in both Israel and the West Bank.
The April 9 event was the second time that Parents Circle has visited the JCCSF since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. The first time was Oct. 25, 2023, but only Robi Damelin, Parents Circle’s Israeli spokesperson, could attend the event in person. Travel restrictions at the time made it impossible for Layla Alsheikh, one of the group’s Palestinian representatives, to fly out of Tel Aviv from her home near Bethlehem.
This time, Alsheikh made it to the JCCSF, which was the final stop of the group’s two-week speaking tour throughout California. The tour was organized by the American Friends of the Parents Circle Families Forum, which supports the organization by creating public awareness and raising funds in the United States, according to its website.
The Parents Circle Families Forum was established in 1995 as a group of bereaved Israeli families. In 1998, the group held its first meeting with Israelis and Palestinians. As of this year, it has grown to include over 800 families, according to Parents Circle resource development director Ilana Bergsagel.
At the JCCSF event, Ynon and Alsheikh shared their personal stories of loss and how their grief brought them together.
On April 11, 2002, Alsheikh’s 6-month-old son, Qusay, woke up in critical condition after inhaling tear gas during an Israeli military raid in their village that started at night.
Because the IDF deemed the area a military zone at the time, Alsheikh said, soldiers prevented her from reaching a hospital for over four hours. By the time she finally got to one, she said, the doctors told her it was too late to save her son.
“I was filled with hatred and anger because I asked myself ‘Why did that happen? And for what?’ Just at 6 months old, he didn’t commit anything,” Alsheikh told the audience. “But at the same time, I didn’t think to take revenge because revenge will never bring him back.”
Sixteen years later, Alsheikh attended her first Parents Circle meeting on the recommendation of a friend. Though she was hesitant at first to share her personal tragedy with Israelis — until then, her only interactions were with soldiers and settlers — the similarities in the stories of loss that people shared were paradigm-shifting for her.
“For the first time, I felt that we share the same tears. Even if we had different circumstances, we are still human,” Alsheikh said. “There is nothing worse than losing a child or family member, and no one could understand that pain unless someone has been in the same situation.”
Since the start of the current war, it has been difficult for Parents Circle to organize joint in-person meetings, though they occasionally take place at locations in Area C of the West Bank, where Israelis can travel without a permit, according to Ynon.
“The staff is half Israeli, half Palestinian, so to be able to work together after Oct. 7 is a kind of miracle,” Ynon said. “We invest in the staff and in the community, so we are able to continue communicating. And it doesn’t mean that we agree about everything. We have disagreements, but we do work.”
The JCCSF event was moderated by Tal Mor and Sam Mogannam, two Bay Area food business owners who since early 2024 have been facilitating weekly sessions in the city for people to openly share their feelings about the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war.
“We’ve learned that working on ourselves is the first and most important step to realizing the world we all hope and dream of,” said Mor, an Israeli American who lives in Cupertino and founded the San Francisco bakery Loquat.
East Bay resident Allen Samelson, who attended the event, told J. that his interest in Parents Circle stemmed from a decadeslong concern about the conflict and a desire for inspiration.
“It’s really helpful to hear directly from people who are forging another path,” he said. “I took to heart their directive that the most important thing is to tell our stories.”