"I had like a vision"

Making dreams come true

The dreams of those killed on October 7 and since are living on, writes Gareth Narunsky.

The Living the Dream team with the family of Salman Habka, a Druze IDF soldier who fell in Gaza.
The Living the Dream team with the family of Salman Habka, a Druze IDF soldier who fell in Gaza.

Ortal Schlissel had big plans for her 40th birthday last year.

“I had a dream,” she told The AJN via Zoom from Israel. “I wanted for one day to be like a big musician and make a show for the people that are connected to me.”

Setting about realising this dream, she attended a music school for a year and wrote 12 songs. She booked a venue for her concert. Everything was organised. Then, the tragedy of October 7 happened.

“I didn’t want my birthday now,” she said.

While Schlissel was fortunate not to lose a family member that day, “I felt that they killed my soul and they killed my dream.”

Instead on her birthday, she held a night of prayers. “We just got together, and we prayed and we cried,” she said.

“And then I had like a vision, and I said our goal is to make the dreams of those who died live.”

Ten months later, Living the Dream, the organisation Schlissel founded, is working with around 60 families – Jewish, Druze and Bedouin – who lost someone on October 7 or in the ensuing war, to fulfil the dreams of their fallen loved ones.

“We are coming to say that their dreams keep living,” Schlissel said. “This is the story of the Jewish people all through history.”

Living the Dream establishes contact with the families to ascertain what “dream” the person had or would be suitable to commemorate their life. Each “dream” is assigned to a project leader, while young Israelis are engaged work on the logistics of implementing the “dream”.

Students from one of the leading pre-army programs in Israel, Ein Prat Academy, work with Living the Dream and are paired with mentors. The organisation Amit, which runs a large number of Israeli schools, has partnered to provide students to volunteer next year.

“We have like 44 volunteers for the 60 families we already have, but we need to have much more, because there are now a lot of families coming to us,” Schlissel said.

One example of a dream is establishing a vineyard in Kerem Shalom, which was the dream of Amichai Vitzan, who was killed defending the community on October 7.

Another dream belonged to soldier Tomer Mizrachi, who was killed in the line of duty near Kibbutz Sufa that day. Mizrachi loved music, composed and loved to sing.

“The family have now made like a big movement where adults teach young people how to play, and it’s like a movement, people can connect with the music,” Schlissel said.

“Every dream is something else.”

Every Jew around the world can be a volunteer, she said.

“We have two volunteers living [in the] United States. They are they are making the process from Zoom, from WhatsApp,” she said. “If someone [is having their] bar mitzvah and they want to give money, we can give a lot of choices to give it, and they are also connecting by heart.”

Schlissel added the reactions from the families make it all worth it.

“One father told us, ‘It’s more than a shiva, what you are doing. You’re bringing us hope, something to wish for, and something to do,'” she said.

It is also important for Schlissel to make something good come out of the war against Hamas.

“In Gaza … they take the money and are making more tunnels, war and more killing,” she said.

“This is a story between the good and the bad … and we are bringing the good. This is our mission in the world.”

Up until now, Living the Dream has been funded by a philanthropist in Israel. But donations from abroad are now needed to continue the work. “It’s not a lot, because most of it is volunteering,” Schlissel said.

And although Israel and Australia are geographically distant, “We are together,” she said.

“You live in Australia and we live in Israel, we are together in the same story. I know how much pain you had from October 7 and how much the Australians volunteered and gave their help for Israel, and now it’s one more way to make the dream come true.

“Every person, every school, every family, every private person that wants to be part of this community can join this movement to make the world much better.”

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