Adi Zakuto and Liad Zakuto at Adi\u2019s wedding on July 15, 2026. Credit: Courtesy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cHe used to walk into a room and completely change its energy,\u201d she told JNS. \u201cHe used to walk around with a huge smile on his face, and he insisted on getting smiles back.\u201d<\/p>\n
The siblings were supposed to meet their father for breakfast and a movie on Oct. 7, one of their Saturday traditions. When rocket sirens began at 6:29 a.m., they called him from Adi\u2019s apartment in Beersheva to assure him that they were safe.<\/p>\n
Zakuto, who had moved into a new apartment in Ofakim three weeks earlier, joked as he counted the sirens that perhaps they were \u201call because of me. I\u2019m such an important personality,\u201d Adi said.<\/p>\n
The family later learned that minutes later, Zakuto went outside in flip-flops, shorts and a T-shirt, and declared that \u201cnothing is going to ruin Simchat Torah,\u201d the Jewish holiday that day.<\/p>\n
Terrorists murdered him at about 7:06 a.m., Adi told JNS.<\/p>\n
At first, Adi did not think she needed any help processing her father\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took me some time to understand that although I\u2019m in my 20s, I still need to get some support and need someone I could lean on,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit helped her with medical school, planning her wedding, buying a car and organizing a memorial for her father on the Sea of Galilee, his \u201cfavorite place,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Liad finished his military service about two and a half months ago and is preparing for a months-long trip in South America. That trip will follow a route his father traveled years earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father, when he was in South America, his friend and him wrote a journal with every single place they\u2019d been at and places they saw,\u201d Liad told JNS. \u201cI\u2019m gonna continue his path, and I\u2019m gonna go to the same places he went, and I\u2019m gonna see the world like he did.\u201d<\/p>\n
The nonprofit, which still helps the siblings, has identified 573 beneficiaries and plans to support them financially through age 30. It also keeps offering professional guidance beyond that point, Yaacobi-Horowitz told JNS.<\/p>\n
The fund tries to supplement, rather than replace, government benefits, which she said are not enough to meet the needs of many families.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the remaining parents didn\u2019t go back to work, so we are talking about very functional families with two parents working,\u201d Yaacobi-Horowitz told JNS. \u201cOne is gone. Eighty percent were the breadwinner, and the parents that remained didn\u2019t go back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The amount the families receive from the Israeli government still \u201cleaves them in a poverty situation, as far as we see it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ten of the children were born after Oct. 7, meaning the organization expects to be supporting some families until 2053, Mody Kidon, the fund\u2019s founder and chairman, told JNS.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my responsibility, that each one of the kids will get the same treatment, the same money,\u201d Kidon said. \u201cIt\u2019s really a huge challenge that we are not going to give up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adi and Liad plan to spend Oct. 7 together, reading the diary that their father kept during his trip through South America and talking about his life.<\/p>\n
Adi told JNS that spending the anniversary together was particularly important, because they are away from Israel and their family.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s weird to be far away from home, especially in these days, away from our family and away from everything we know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to read it in the United States and just talk about his trip to South America and talk about our father and what we are feeling,\u201d Adi told JNS.<\/p>\n
Adi and Liad are \u201cthe exception,\u201d Kidon told JNS.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are the exception in the way they continue with their life,\u201d he said. \u201cOf course, they have trauma. Of course, they remember their father. I\u2019m sure that every day, it\u2019s not that they forgot it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they decided to continue with their life,\u201d he told JNS. \u201cUnfortunately, most of the victims are still in a different situation, which will take more time, more effort, and we will be there for each one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
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