"October 7th, 2023 from Kibbutz Neroz, which suffered some of the worst devastation from the gruesome and barbaric terrorist attack of October 7th."

"In his professional life, he's the Rabbi Edward Sandro Chair in Soviet and East European Jewry at Hebrew University of Jerusalem."

"I was on my way to an academic seminar in Baltimore at that moment."

"And that person who lives in Rhode Island, an old friend of both of ours, had been watching CNN or some other news channels."

"So my grandkids, they bore the brunt of this, me not being around a lot. But it was clear why. And so... Was that hard for you? It was really hard. We're a closely knit family. I have 13 grandkids and adore them all. And I had my role as grandfather until October 7th. So it was difficult, but there was a greater good that had to be done here. And, you know, surprisingly, the grandkids, kids who were old enough to understand these things, completely got it. And we're as supportive as, you know, 10-year-olds or 8-year-olds or 5-year-olds can be around this, because they dearly wanted their Uncle Segi back, needless to say, their dad. And the dads of all of their, you know, of many of their friends, they understood how important it was for me to be able to go and do that, and for them to be cool with it. And my kids were also great around this. So there you go. You guys are a very tight-knit family. How did you preserve Segi's presence while he was gone for so long? How did you keep him, even though you knew that he was alive, how did you keep him alive as if he was with you, or at four or five? He was never anything else, but with us every moment. His wife has really described this for herself. And I invite your viewers, your listeners, to seek out her... There's plenty in English as well, you know, articles about her and interviews with her. For her, Sigi was with her every moment, mostly in her sleeping hours, in her dream world. Can you say more about that? It's fascinating. Well, it's really quite extraordinary. And we knew one half of the story before February 14th, and then the other half only became clear thereafter. Avitalis described how, for her, you know, she was essentially functioning as a single mother with a lot of help, from family members and so on, but a single mom and manager of a business for nearly 500 days. Her home was gone. Our way of life was gone. A very unclear future in terms of where we're going to live, how we're going to live. But for her, Sigi was with her all the time, especially in her dream world. She was too busy with the stuff of life during the waking hours. But she, he was with him every night, all night in her dream world. She was with him every night, all night in her dream world. I, again, invite your audience. A song was written about this, her words put to music by a very prominent Israeli musician. I invite you to put a link to this song, named Idan Reicher, about her story, their connection in her dreams, and really having to deal with that transition every morning of having to say goodbye to Sigi, or so long, not goodbye, until the next, until the next night, sundown, more or less."

"On our own initiative, moved about 80% of the surviving community to temporary housing here in Kiryat Gat, which is where we're speaking right now."

"The surviving community was evacuated on October 8th in the midst of a war to a hotel in Eilat where we were housed very graciously until early January."