One Day in Octo­ber, trans­lat­ed from the Hebrew edi­tion of the same name, rec­og­nizes the heroes and hero­ines that ​“emerged from the shel­ter of their homes, charged into the infer­no, and fought like lions to save lives.”. This col­lec­tion of forty sto­ries shows us inspir­ing moments that took place on Israel’s dark­est day. Sto­ries are retold in the first per­son, or shared by a close rel­a­tive when events end­ed with the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice. They remind us that love can over­shad­ow, if only briefly, the hatred that was unleashed on the Jew­ish people. 

In ​“A Gen­er­a­tion of Heroes,” we learn the sto­ry of Matan Abargil, as retold by his father, Arik. The youngest of four chil­dren, Matan was the fear­less one. He was sta­tioned near the Gaza bor­der on Octo­ber 7th and was quick­ly mobi­lized to defend Kib­butz Nir Am. He and his com­rades found them­selves trapped inside an immo­bi­lized armored per­son­nel car­ri­er. When ter­ror­ists man­aged to throw a grenade into the vehi­cle, Matan wrapped his body around it, shield­ing its blast from others.

In ​“My Pur­pose Is to Bring Life into the World,” Michaela Koret­z­ki, a mid­wife at Soro­ka Hos­pi­tal, pro­vid­ed emer­gency aid and then helped evac­u­ate, dur­ing bat­tle, mem­bers of her kib­butz, ulti­mate­ly sav­ing three lives. When she returned to the blood­stained walls of her home weeks lat­er, she sat on the floor and tried to process what had hap­pened in her liv­ing room. ​“I thought about how my pur­pose in life is to bring life into the world, and that’s what hap­pened that day as well. I mean, we man­aged to save three peo­ple; it’s like they were reborn.”

In ​“I Can Sense Dad­dy All the Time,” Pauli­na Belen­ki, age four­teen, tells her father’s sto­ry. Denis, a police offi­cer in Sderot, forced his way into the police sta­tion to save fel­low offi­cers. Pauli­na heard about her father’s hero­ism from the offi­cers he saved. In her inter­view with the authors, she shared that she was ​“so hap­py that my dad is going to be in this book. It’s real­ly impor­tant to me. I was so excit­ed when I got the mes­sage ask­ing me to tell his sto­ry. And I know that some­day my kids, though they will nev­er get to meet their grand­pa and nev­er get to know him, at least they will be able to hear about him. And they’ll know that he was a good man. And hap­py, and fun­ny. So thank you; it’s real­ly impor­tant to me that he’ll be remem­bered for gen­er­a­tions to come.”

“May We Take the Path of Light” is the last sto­ry of One Day in Octo­ber. Mus­sa Darawsha relays the sto­ry of his son Awad, a para­medic at the Nova Fes­ti­val, who stayed behind to help the injured. As fel­low para­medics fled the scene, Awad believed that his shared faith and lan­guage would help him to rea­son with the ter­ror­ists. He con­tin­ued to treat the wound­ed until he was shot twice in the heart. He was found hold­ing ban­dages he might have used to pro­tect the wounds of oth­ers. His funer­al was attend­ed by thou­sands of peo­ple of all faiths who offered strength to a bereaved father.

Israel has been for­ev­er changed by the hor­ror of Octo­ber 7th, 2023, and the trau­ma is re-inflict­ed every day as we wait to learn the fate of the remain­ing hostages. One Day in Octo­ber allows us to reflect on the pow­er of good­ness to dis­pel dark­ness. It pro­vides hope and assures us that evil can­not prevail.