Ridgway man whose parents are missing in Gaza bombing launches fundraiser to help kibbutz
Hamas’ early morning raid was sudden, swift and merciless as thousands of terrorists stormed the Israeli-Gaza border intent on killing, wounding or kidnapping as many Israeli civilians as possible.
Among the missing are Ridgway resident Rahm Haggai’s parents, Judih Weinstein and Gadi Haggai. The couple live in kibbutz Nir Oz, located one mile from the border and site of one of the current conflict’s most savage massacres.
Without knowing anything about his parents’ condition and aware Hamas burned his childhood home to the ground, the weeks since the Oct. 7 invasion have been a waking nightmare.
“It’s hell, man, it’s hell. It’s stressful. It’s hard to sleep,” Haggai said. “I tried to keep my siblings strong, so they won’t break down. I have a lot of friends that lost their parents. I’ve got a lot of friends that were killed. I’ve got friends that were kidnapped. All my life as I knew it flipped over 180 degrees.”
In response, Haggai and his partner, Sydney Mendel, have organized a GoFundMe with the intention of raising $50,000 for recovery efforts in a destroyed community that’s fostered so many fond memories.
For the carpenter who has lived in Ridgway for the past four years, it’s something tangible he can do for his hometown while living more than 7,000 miles away. So far, the campaign has raised around $20,400.
“My people now where I grew up, they are all basically refugees. They have nowhere to go back to now. They lost all their possessions. They lost their life. They’re lucky to be alive,” Haggai said. “So, what I could do is try to get the community in Ridgway, Telluride, Ouray, people who have a pretty damn good life and pretty quiet, beautiful life, just to help my community get back on their feet.”
Before the war, there were rarely any cars on roads, and children rode bikes and played soccer and basketball within Nir Oz’s fences from sunrise until their mothers called them home for dinner.
When the first major clashes broke out when Haggai was 17, some of that idealism was swept away by the exhaust from Palestinian rockets that streaked overhead.
Yet little could prepare him for the text messages in the family group chat nearly a month ago.
As Haggai slept, his parents told their family Hamas launched a massive rocket attack around dawn, and that militants entered southern Israel after flying in on mechanical paragliders and overwhelming border checkpoints. His sister, who lives in Singapore, was the only other family member awake at the time and kept initial contact with them.
The last they heard from their parents was that they had fled roughly a mile and a half from their home near the fields where they took their daily morning walks. Their trail grew cold from there, with local authorities taking 10 days to tell Haggai and his siblings they knew nothing about their fate.
For now, all they can do is pray for the best and do their part to help those who were able to flee Hamas’ attack.
“We’re kind of stuck. We’re just waiting for Hamas to publish a list of the names of the hostages they do have,” Haggai said. “Or we’re just waiting for a phone call saying, ‘Hey, we identified the bodies, and your parents are dead.’ Right now, all we’re doing is just waiting. We just don’t know.”
