Killed on Oct. 7, a modern-day Israeli Romeo and Juliet unite their families — and nation

On a late February morning, Amir Zini stood outside the burned-out dwelling in Kibbutz Kfar Aza where his son Nirel was murdered with his girlfriend Niv during the Hamas-led terror onslaught on October 7, 2023. Noticing a group of high school students walking by, Zini asked their teacher if they would like to hear a bit about Nirel and Niv.

His opening remarks were greeted by a look of surprise on the students’ faces.

“For eight years, Nirel and Niv were a couple. But for that whole time they were afraid that we would meet her parents or that her parents would meet us,” said Zini. “Today, it sounds strange to say that, and when we and Niv’s parents ask why that was, there is no one to answer.”

Zini, 60, who wears a kippa and has a lengthy rabbinic-style grey beard, paused and then added a word of caution: “Our families come from opposite ends of Israeli society, but this was not a situation we should ever be in.”

Zini went on to describe how Nirel, who was 31 at the time of his murder, and Niv, who was 27, were army officers. Both had been focusing their university studies on career paths aimed at helping soldiers suffering from war-related trauma.

Noting the age of his listeners, Zini added that Nirel, motivated by having been originally rejected from serving in the army because of “youthful misdeeds,” eventually went on to a decade-long career as a combat soldier, reaching a high-ranking position. Nirel later also did volunteer work with teenagers on the margins of society who were at risk of being disqualified from army service.

After the group departed, Zini entered the small courtyard of the cabin-size quarters Nirel and Nir had rented in a kibbutz neighborhood for young couples.

“They chose to live here because they thought it was one of the most peaceful and beautiful places in Israel,” said Zini.

Their neighborhood, surrounded by the bucolic green fields of the kibbutz farms, is indeed strikingly quiet, with perhaps an extra layer of silence added by the emptiness of the destroyed homes.

Tragedy unfolds

Zini lives on Moshav Tlamim, about 23 kilometers (14 miles) from Kfar Aza. On October 7, he called Nirel when he heard the bombardment going on at the Gaza border settlements. Nirel told him he had tried to get a weapon from the kibbutz armory, but it was surrounded by terrorists, some of whom were now on the roof of their house. All he had was a knife.

“I told him to keep the door to the safe room closed and to look after Niv,” Zini said. “It was 10:04 a.m. and that was our last conversation.”

In a February army briefing for Kfar Aza family members in which the IDF presented its investigation into the events that took place at the kibbutz on October 7, Zini learned that more than 250 terrorists had invaded the community of 950 people. Only a 14-member security team was initially present, and even after army reinforcements arrived, it took three days until all the terrorists, some who fortified themselves in kibbutz homes, were eliminated.

By then, 62 residents were killed and 19 abducted to the Gaza Strip. In all, some 1,200 people in southern Israel were slaughtered that day and 251 kidnapped to Gaza.

As Zini entered the blackened safe room in Nirel and Niv’s home, he cited one detail in the long list of failures revealed in the IDF probe that especially irks him.

“When I was a soldier, we were taught that once you secured a territory, you stayed there until reinforcements arrived,” he said, referring to the finding that security personnel had reached Nirel and Niv’s neighborhood in the early morning, but then went on to other places.

Left unsaid is the likelihood that when those forces arrived, Nirel and Niv were still alive.

After Zini lost contact with his son, he began a flurry of phone calls to senior officers in the army whom he knew personally, but no one could find any sign of Nirel and Niv. They were assumed to have been kidnapped.

Connected in sorrow

Zini also made frequent phone calls to Niv’s parents, Tami and Yoel Raviv. Suddenly, the two families were in close contact with each other.

Six days later, on Friday morning, Tami Raviv called Zini and said army representatives had come to inform her that Niv was not alive and that the funeral would take place Saturday night.

“I told her that if Niv wasn’t alive then I was sure that Nirel also wasn’t,” recalled Zini. “I turned to my wife Osnat and asked her if she wanted them to be buried together. She said that it was unthinkable that they should ever be separated. So I asked Tami if she agreed that they be buried together.”

Zini said Tami tried to convince him not to give up hope, but he decided to prepare for the worst.

He went outside his home to where nobody could hear him and phoned the Hevra Kadisha, the religious burial society, and inquired about the procedure for organizing a joint burial — if one was requested.

Several hours later, just before Shabbat began, army personnel arrived to inform Zini that Nirel’s death was confirmed.

“I turned off my phone and told my children that the war had ruined my previous Shabbat, but now that I know Nirel’s fate, I want to observe Shabbat and not be disturbed,” Zini said.

On Saturday night, the Zinis headed out to the Ravivs’ home in Netanya. “I set Waze with the address Tami gave me. We had never been to their home before,” Zini said.

What happened next would overwhelm both families.

“It started with meeting the Zini family, which was of course very emotional,” recalled Tami Raviv. Sitting in her office in Beit Yanai, north of Tel Aviv, nearly a year and a half later, she still spoke of that evening in an awe-stricken voice.

“We go outside on our way to the cemetery and I see a religious woman with a baby in her arms holding a sign saying, ‘Niv is in our hearts.’ I want to stop and thank her for coming, but then I see that she is not alone,” said Raviv. “There is a huge crowd behind her with people holding flags. The entire way to the cemetery is packed with people waving flags, holding torches and singing [Israel’s national anthem] ‘Hatikva.’ I am thinking that this is such an honor for Niv and Nirel by people who don’t even know us.”

Unknown to the Raviv and Zini families, word about the tragedy had spread throughout the city and more than 30,000 people, according to police estimates, lined the streets. Sadly, other massive processions of grief have been repeated throughout the country in the past year and a half, but Niv and Nirel’s funeral may have been the first.

“At the cemetery, in the eulogy hall, you can’t miss the difference between the very religious and secular people,” continued Raviv. “They are all crammed together, but with a lot of respect for each other. We start to walk to the burial plot and it is very dark. Out of nowhere, it starts to rain. No one has an umbrella. People are soaking wet, but everyone keeps on going.”

“Suddenly, at the grave, there is a big beam of light,” she said. “You could see the rain striking — a completely surrealistic situation. Then my sister, a secular person who had been very active in the demonstrations [against the government’s proposed judicial overhaul] turns to me and in the middle of the ceremony says: ‘Tami, Niv and Nirel were chosen to unite our nation.’ It was such a powerful moment. Then I look outside the cemetery. Everything is dry. It seems impossible. There was pouring rain. But it was like the cloud was just over our heads.”

When the two families returned to the Raviv home, Tami discovered that Nirel’s parents shared the same feeling.

“We feel we have a role to play in uniting our nation,” she recalled them telling each other. “We just don’t know how to do it.”

A vision fulfilled

Fast-forward to August 2024. In a pastoral setting in Beit Yanai, with a lawn overlooking the Mediterranean, the Niv Nirel Center opened its doors. There, a 15-member staff offers holistic treatment to individuals affected by war events with an array of methods aiding the healing process. The CEO is Tami Raviv, who has given up a successful career in the international business world in order to make the families’ vision come true.

Raviv helped design the center in collaboration with medical director Dr. Kfir Feffer, a psychiatrist specializing in war trauma, and the Lev Hasharon Mental Health Center.

The center’s activities, Raviv said, reflect what might have been Niv and Nirel’s joint mission.

“Niv had a very therapeutic soul. She was always helping people. That’s why she studied psychology,” Raviv said.

One of the people Niv was helping was Nirel, who had suffered from PTSD after sustaining a life-threatening injury in a major battle in 2015.

Nirel was studying law, Raviv explained, because of another battle: his lengthy fight to obtain war-injury benefits from the government bureaucracy. He hoped to assist fellow soldiers get the assistance they required.

People can come to the center without being identified as suffering from PTSD, noted Raviv. “They are just people who because of the war feel that something inside them has changed,” she said.

But as one soldier pointed out, even recognizing that they are suffering can be difficult.

“When I came back, I was nervous all the time. I fought with my boss and lost a high-paying job. I didn’t think I had anything to complain about because there were lots of soldiers who were injured and in bad shape,” said Gilad Bremer who came to the Center last November after serving with an artillery unit on the Lebanese border.

“I was skeptical and didn’t show up the first time I was supposed to be there,” he recalled. “But when I did go I realized there were people there who could see from the side what I couldn’t see.”

Four months later, Bremer made these observations at a cafe, sitting beside his girlfriend, Nastya, and their dog, Biggy. “Once I realized I wasn’t alone in my situation I was able to move on and get a new job,” he said, adding with a smile, “Nastya and I found a place to live together and we got a dog.”

Raviv has achieved a lot in a relatively short period of time, bringing innovative therapies to the Center, some involving state-of-the-art technology, and initiating collaborations with international trauma centers.

Summing it all up, she returns to the inspiration she got the night of the funeral.

“Niv and Nirel have given us this big mission that we need to carry on. I understand now that we can’t all believe in the same tradition, but we are all Jews. There is something that unites us that words can’t explain.”

That sentiment was echoed by Amir Zini when he concluded his talk with the high school students at Kfar Aza.

“I don’t know why they were afraid to bring us parents together,” said Zini. “Yet the fact that they were able to connect with each other is proof that it is possible for these two worlds to connect.”