{"id":93349,"date":"2026-07-24T17:59:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T22:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/?p=93349"},"modified":"2026-07-24T18:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T23:26:13","slug":"prize-winning-journalist-amir-tibon-is-moving-back-to-the-kibbutz-where-he-and-his-family-survived-oct-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/prize-winning-journalist-amir-tibon-is-moving-back-to-the-kibbutz-where-he-and-his-family-survived-oct-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Prize-winning journalist Amir Tibon is moving back to the kibbutz where he and his family survived Oct. 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL<\/p>\n

(JTA) \u2014 \u201cTo be a liberal Zionist, it\u2019s quite a lonely place,\u201d said Amir Tibon, the Israeli journalist whose memoir \u201cThe Gates of Gaza\u201d is one of the defining books of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cLonely\u201d is relative, of course. Tibon\u2019s story of how he, his wife Miri and their young daughters hunkered in a safe room as Hamas gunmen overran their kibbutz in southern Israel, and how his parents \u2014 Maj. Gen. (ret.) Noam Tivon and Dr. Gali Mir-Tibon \u2014 rushed into the war zone on a mission to save them, has made him one of the best-known survivors of the carnage. <\/p>\n

In an interview, he described the outpouring of support his family received from fellow Israelis and American Jews, and the letters he gets weekly from people inspired by his book.<\/p>\n

But Tibon, the opinion editor for the left-wing Israeli daily Haaretz, was speaking about a political reality. In the 33 months since Oct. 7, Israeli society has moved to the right, while the global left has turned Israel, its government, its people and its supporters into pariahs. That makes Tibon an inconvenient figure in both camps: too left for the Zionists, too Zionist for the left, and an eyewitness to events \u2014 acts of butchery on one side, security lapses on the other \u2014 that both would rather forget.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, even as he feels like a beleaguered minority, he remains committed to a vision of coexistence. \u201cThe one thing that is not changing: In this land, you have about 50% Palestinians or Arabs \u2014 some of them civilian citizens of Israel \u2014 and 50% Jews,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat do we do? How do we live together in this land? I think that question is not going anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

On July 28, at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, Tibon will receive the 2026 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for his memoir, subtitled \u201cA Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel\u2019s Borderlands.\u201d The $100,000 award, established 20 years ago by the family of the late American real estate developer, philanthropist and Holocaust survivor, is presented annually to an emerging author \u201cwho demonstrates the potential to make ongoing contributions to Jewish literature.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The gate to Nahal Oz, shown in September 2024, where 15 civilians were killed by Hamas gunmen on Oct. 7, and eight were taken to Gaza as hostages. More than 50 Israeli soldiers and security personnel were killed in the battle for the kibbutz and at the adjacent army base. (Shlomo Rode via the PikiWiki)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In \u201cThe Gates of Gaza,\u201d published in the fall of 2024, Tibon weaves his family\u2019s rescue story with a wider history of Kibbutz Nahal Oz and the Gaza border communities and an account of the intelligence and policy failures that left them undefended. The book has also won the National Jewish Book Award, the Wingate Prize and the Bernstein Prize, and has been translated into Hebrew, German, French, Romanian, Italian and Hungarian, with a Spanish edition on the way.<\/p>\n

The Rohr prize, Tibon said, arrives at a moment when he feels a duty to keep Oct. 7 in view. \u201cIt means that we are not forgetting Oct. 7,\u201d he said of the prize. \u201cWe are not allowing anyone to minimize, deny, justify or otherwise just ignore that day and its place in history. There are very powerful forces that are trying to shift the conversation away from that day for various reasons. And by choosing this book, I think the judging panel is doing the opposite: It\u2019s once again putting a spotlight on that day, and on everything that has changed because of it.<\/p>\n

Since the attack, Tibon and his family have lived as evacuees in Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek in northern Israel. In August, nearly three years after the invasion, they and other evacuees plan to move back home to Nahal Oz and join those who have already come back. Fifteen civilians from the kibbutz were killed on Oct. 7, and eight were taken to Gaza as hostages. More than 50 Israeli soldiers and security personnel were killed in the battle for the kibbutz and at the adjacent army base.<\/p>\n

The return, he said, is \u201cstill a difficult, complicated situation on many levels \u2014 security, resources and just kind of the mental part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Counting his family, roughly two-thirds of the community who lived there before the attacks will soon be living there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure everybody who is returning is definitely going to stay,\u201d he said. \u201cI think this is a test we still have to see \u2014 how is life going to look for families, what\u2019s going to be the security situation, how much the education and health care and transportation and other government services are going to be high quality. These are all open questions. But we\u2019ll see about all of these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

His daughters, Galia, 6, and Carmel, four and a half, have absorbed more in the last three years than any child should. \u201cThe kids here grow up too fast,\u201d he said. \u201cThey understand a lot of what has happened \u2014 Oct. 7, the war with Gaza, the experience of having to leave your home, and then the subsequent Hezbollah and Iran wars. Unfortunately they understand pretty much everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between the book and a 2025 documentary based on his story, \u201cThe Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,\u201d Tibon has become one of the most recognizable faces of Oct. 7 \u2014 a status he wears uneasily. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Amir Tibon’s father, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Noam Tivon, raced south on Oct. 7 to help rescue his son’s family, with his wife Dr. Gali Mir-Tibon at the wheel. Above, he leads a demonstration to stop the war in Gaza, at Habima Square in Tel Aviv, July 24, 2025. (Ben Shoshana\/Wikimedia Commons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see myself as a spokesperson for anyone,\u201d he said, pointing to others whose books have resonated widely, including the former hostage Eli Sharabi and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Her son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was abducted by Hamas from the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7. Hersh was slain by his captors after surviving for nearly 11 months in captivity.  <\/p>\n

Even within his own tiny community, Tibon said, \u201cevery story is different.\u201d Nahal Oz has 450 residents. \u201cEach family has its own story from that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the reception for the book means he has had an impact on how people remember and discuss Oct. 7.\u201dTens of thousands of people around the world have read this book,\u201d he said, and he still hears from readers weekly. \u201cMost of them are very supportive and uplifting, but there\u2019s also criticism, and I\u2019m happy for that as well.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Observers’ Monument is a memorial site near Nahal Oz for the soldiers who fell in the battle for the kibbutz during the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre. Sixteen women surveillance and support soldiers were among the IDF personnel killed defending the area. (Lizzy Shaanan via the PikiWiki)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Some of that criticism comes from the left, from those who feel his story of Israeli suffering crowds out attention that should be focused on the tens of thousands of Gazans killed in the war and the million-plus who have been displaced. Tibon doesn\u2019t flinch from the argument that the war has been catastrophic for Palestinians \u2014 he has said so in print, repeatedly. And he remains a harsh critic of the Netanyahu government, which he feels has extended the war in part to keep its hold on power.<\/p>\n

But he insists that Hamas\u2019 culpability for all that followed cannot be erased: \u201cThis war never would have started without Oct. 7. That\u2019s just a fact,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that day, it was a catastrophe for Israelis, and it was just as much a calamity for the Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tibon said he is less worried about the activist left\u2019s hostility toward Israel than he is about the mainstream turn in U.S. public opinion. \u201cToday 60% of Americans have a negative view of the country,\u201d he said, \u201cand nobody is going to convince me that 60% of Americans is antisemitic and supports BDS.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Netanyahu government, he said, has been \u201ca godsend, a gift from the heavens, for the far left in America,\u201d which prefers to point to Netanyahu and his far-right ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, rather than Israelis like Tibon\u2019s family and the other residents of Nahal Oz who still yearn for peace.<\/p>\n

But he warns fellow supporters of Israel against making the opposite mistake, and defending the Israeli government from justified criticism. \u201cIf you\u2019re saying Netanyahu is immune from criticism and cannot be separated from Israel, you just made Zohran Mamdani\u2019s day,\u201d he said, referring to the anti-Israel New York City mayor.<\/p>\n

Tibon is blunt about what he sees as an Israeli government strategy of trying to move on from Oct. 7. \u201cThe government would very much like to erase Oct. 7 from public memory,\u201d he said, \u201cor at least to frame it in terms that are very favorable for them, and make it smaller than the war writ large.\u201d <\/p>\n

Given the security failures on that day, Tibon remains flabbergasted that Netanyahu\u2019s government has survived the almost three years since.<\/p>\n

He argues Israel abandoned its founding doctrine of short, decisive wars for long, inconclusive ones in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran that served the coalition\u2019s survival more than the country\u2019s security: \u201cThey did not defeat Hamas. They did not defeat Hezbollah. They did not defeat Iran. But they managed to survive a full term,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Not everyone who lived through what Tibon\u2019s family did has landed where he has politically. But while acknowledging the sharp political shift to the right in Israel since Oct. 7, he says it\u2019s not just the left that remains \u201cdisgusted\u201d with the government. Friends across the spectrum who served hundreds of days in reserve duty are appalled, for example, by legislation sheltering approximately 72,000 haredi Orthodox yeshiva students from the draft.<\/p>\n

That contradiction, he said, is why figures like Avigdor Liberman, Naftali Bennett and Gadi Eisenkot \u2014 politicians critical of Netanyahu but hardly doves \u2014 are \u201cascendant right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he\u2019s changed his own mind about anything since Oct. 7, Tibon didn\u2019t hesitate: \u201cI\u2019ve become more pessimistic.\u201d Then, he catches himself. \u201cIf we succumb to total pessimism, then what\u2019s the point of being here at all?\u201d<\/p>\n

If there is hope, he said, it has come from community, family and routine. He calls Mishmar HaEmek \u201ca wonderful kibbutz\u201d that \u201copened their hearts and their home.\u201d Miri resumed her work with autistic children, now in Afula, a city in northern Israel. He went back to Haaretz and wrote the book. \u201cIt gives you a sense of purpose and meaning and something to get up for in the morning,\u201d he said. He has also found purpose over the past three years in visiting the families of soldiers who died defending Nahal Oz or fell later in Gaza or Lebanon \u2014 \u201cmany dozens\u201d by now. \u201cI keep in touch with many of them,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is no release from this.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is also grateful to the American Jewish organizations and synagogues, many from the Washington, D.C.-area where he and Miri once lived, for an outpouring of support that began on Oct. 8 and hasn\u2019t let up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also find a lot of reasons for hope within my own family \u2014 to see my daughters, how they\u2019re growing and overcoming this trauma and becoming independent and strong every day \u2014 and to see my community, the people of Nahal Oz, who are doing a little bit every day to make things better and to overcome what happened. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I want to be optimistic that just as we are able to rebuild Nahal Oz now, and rebuild our life over there, we will also rebuild the country and put it on the right track.\u201d<\/p>\n

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