Pogrom at Kibbutz Be'eri: Jews Under Fire
by Nils A. Haug • August 21, 2024 at 6:00 am
Kibbutz Be'eri is one of 22 Israeli towns and villages that were attacked on October 7, 2023. At the kibbutzim and surrounding areas, a total of around 1,200 people were murdered (including 36 children), thousands more wounded, and more than 250 other abducted (including 30 children) -- Jews and non-Jews, Israelis and foreigners, males and females, young and old, civilians and soldiers. It was purposed slaughter, a repeat of the massacres in the shtetls of Europe. Pictured: Covered bodies in front of a destroyed house in Kibbutz Be'eri, photographed on October 11, 2023. (Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images)
"As word came that murderous hordes were approaching, the Jews attempted to flee. Those who could not, barricaded themselves indoors and prayed for a miracle."
This moving narrative describes not the shocking events of October 7, 2023, at Kibbutz Be'eri and other communities in Israel, but the massacre of eastern European Jews nearly 400 years earlier by Cossacks during the 1648 Khmelnitsky pogroms, in what is now Ukraine.
