On the morning of October 7, my mother called and told me to get into the bomb shelter. I grunted, mumbled something about it being just a few rockets, and went back to sleep. I had no idea that within a matter of hours, my life, dreams, and everything I thought was so important would be forever flipped on their head.
Growing up as a comfortable suburban Jew in America, I never thought twice about antisemitism, Israel, or the conflict in the Middle East. I loved making music and playing sports, particularly football and baseball, and I dreamed of making it to the major leagues.
In 2008, my mother shlepped me to Israel on aliyah. Four years later, I wasn’t exactly hitting home runs in school, and so I found my way to the Yerushalayim Torah Academy, a new high school in Jerusalem designed to help kids like me integrate into Israeli culture. The friends I met the first day I walked in became my family over the next 12 years. As new Israelis, we understood one another’s struggles and found a way to support each other, regardless of the challenges – and there were many.
On October 6th, eight years after graduating high school with straight A’s in everything but the classes I took, I was living in Bat Yam with close friends from high school, including my long-time friend, football teammate, and Old City neighbor, David Newman. I was working, playing on Israel’s national flag football team, experimenting with creating some pretty out-of-the-box content on TikTok, and pursuing my dreams.
Where is David?
A couple hours after rolling over and going back to sleep that morning, texts started coming in about whether anyone had heard from David. Just 12 hours earlier, I had said goodbye to David as he and his girlfriend Noam left for the Supernova music festival down South.
Those texts quickly turned frantic as reports came in about an infiltration at a music festival near Gaza, and then came a text from David. “Pray for me.”
At that moment, we did what we’ve been doing since ninth grade – anything we could to have each other’s backs. What began as four friends heading down South to save their friend at the Nova festival quickly turned into a drive into hell. The closer we came to Gaza, the clearer it became that Israel was at war, and we were losing. We dared not utter our deepest fear – that we were losing David too.
Throughout October 7 and 8, we drove up and down Route 232, a scene of unspeakable massacres, trying to help out where we could and desperately looking for David. What I saw there will haunt me forever.
Driving down that body-strewn road, I did the only thing I thought might help. I started documenting the scenes of utter destruction, the very scenes that people around the world were already denying. My friends got angry, “Why are you filming? We gotta move!” But in my heart, I knew what I had to do.
On Sunday night, October 8, we received a photo on WhatsApp. Bodies were piled high in a field. We identified David from that picture.
With David’s murder confirmed, a part of me died too; the innocent part of me, the carefree part, the part of me that never questioned why I was doing what I did, why I was living in Israel, why so many people have hated us for so long. Though something inside each of us died that day, something else was born. We were determined to do something for our people.
Somehow, within 24 hours, we transformed a friend’s Long Island home into a warehouse. We were suddenly immersed in collecting desperately needed gear for soldiers, fielding calls from their families and commanders, and scheduling a flight with El Al Cargo. Shortly before David’s funeral began, more than 9,000 kilos of aid for the IDF soldiers who were rushing into battle to defend us, was approaching Ben-Gurion Airport.
Over the following days and weeks, our nascent organization, originally called Soldiers Save Lives, opened a warehouse, organized 10 more flights of aid valued at over $10 million, and started a distribution network reaching thousands of soldiers.
While I was seeing the impact of what we were doing on the ground in Israel, I was also watching an online explosion of hateful rhetoric directed against my people, my friends, and my family. All over social media, people were explaining why David, a full-of-life guy who loved to dance, cook, and travel, deserved to be murdered just because he was a Jew.
I knew I had to do more and that my experience with content creation was about to be put to good use. I soon found myself at a pro-Palestinian rally in New York screaming Am Yisrael Chai! It was me and five or six other Jews against hundreds calling for the destruction of Israel. I posted a video of myself on Instagram, which immediately got millions of views. My mission was now clear.
Love it or hate it, social media molds opinions and influences the actions of people my age. What we see online determines what we eat, whom we love, and what policies we support. As I scrolled through my page daily, I saw a huge gap. There was a lack of inspiring content that spoke to people my age, connected us, humanized the Jewish people, and showed our side of the story.
Since posting our first video six months ago, we have garnered over 50 million views, inspiring thousands worldwide to stand with pride for Israel and the Jewish people.
Soon, it will be October 7 again. We’re still battling the monsters that went on a butchering and raping rampage. We’re at war with Hezbollah, and Iran looms large. Online, too, we are at war every day, and the war has just begun.
The Moshe that woke up on October 7, the Moshe that is doing everything he can to impact, inspire, motivate, and activate pro-Israel voices around the world, is not the Moshe that went to sleep on October 6. I know what I feel and what I stand for, and I want to make sure that every person I impact around the world has the same clarity and determination as I do.
I have no doubt that the battles that we fight online will be a determining factor for the State of Israel and the Jewish people as a whole.
Rolling over and going back to sleep will never again be an option.
It’s time to make sure everybody wakes up.
Let’s do something.
The writer is the chief media officer of Let’s Do Something, a collective of young friends committed to inspiring pro-Israel engagement, bolstering Israel’s defense, and supporting those impacted by October 7. They are driven by the memory of their best friend, David Newman, who was tragically murdered at the Supernova music festival.
