Here Lived
In the last few years, this was Bar Goren’s apartment. Bar was born and raised in the kibbutz. He is the son of Avner and Maya z”l and brother of Asif, Gal, and Dekel. He grew up in the kibbutz’s educational system, the regional schools, and the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement. During high school, he worked in agriculture on the kibbutz, and then did a year of service with the Hashomer Hatzair branch in Rehovot. He was a combat soldier and medic in the Caracal battalion. During the “national mission” period, he took part in a Hashomer Hatzair Nahal group in Naharia. After his military service he worked as a security guard and medic for tour groups and in the kibbutz grocery store.
October 7th
On the morning of October 7, Bar was in this apartment, in the safe room, when the sirens started. He stayed in the apartment throughout the massacre in the kibbutz. As the day wore on, he lost touch with his parents and heard the sound of one of his neighbors being kidnapped. Around noon, terrorists burst into his apartment, but for some unknown reason, they moved on quickly without trying to open the safe room or loot the apartment. After 11 hours, Bar was rescued by the army, taken to the operations room, and then to the kindergarten with the rest of the survivors. On the afternoon of October 8, he was evacuated from Nir Oz.
What Happened Since
For the next three months, while the kibbutz evacuees were staying in an Eilat hotel, Bar assisted with the schooling of the first to third graders, helped sort and distribute donations for the evacuees, and aided the community’s transition from Eilat to Karme Gat. In mid-January 2024, right after the community left the hotel and moved to Karme Gat, Bar began studying at the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering at the Technion, while also working for the return of the hostages. Bar’s father, Avner, was kidnapped from his house in Nir Oz already wounded, and murdered on the way to the Gaza Strip. His body was found next to the Israeli border, and, at the end of October, he was buried in Nir Oz. Bar’s mother, Maya, was severely wounded by gunshot, kidnapped from the Kibbutz children’s house, and murdered. Maya’s body was held hostage until July 2024, when a military operation retrieved it. Maya was buried next to her husband Avner.
