South Florida woman who was in Israel when Hamas attacked shares her story
MIAMI — October 6 will go down as one of Sabina Osman's best nights. She was in Israel celebrating the high holidays.
"It was Simchat Torah, which is called the 'joy of the Torah,'" she said, "and it's a holiday where the Jews really like sing songs of peace."
She woke up the next morning to sirens.
"I didn't know what was going on," she said. "Like, I didn't know if like a cafe — God forbid — had been bombed or what happened, but I ended up just walking the streets that were super quiet in Tel Aviv, and I walked to the synagogue."
It was also Shabbat, the day of rest, so she didn't have her phone on her to see what was going on. The rabbi told the room Israel had been attacked, and the country was at war.
"One person with a phone, and he would get messages basically and go into the crowd of the synagogue and say, 'you've been called, you've been called, you've been called,'" she said. "So, those kids would stand up and leave and like they would go, they'd have to go get their army fatigues."
By October 8, she said thousands gathered at a fountain in the heart of Tel Aviv.
"There was a little hub of people who had like their laptops and cell phones," she said, "and then they would say on the microphone, 'we need towels!', and people would go and they would go to the stores and get 200 towels and bring them. We would pack them in boxes, and then all these people would pull up with cars and say, 'I have an empty car, give me an address'."
She said volunteers in Israel, and back here in Miami, mobilized like never before.
"No one is more than one person removed from the situation," she said. "So my cousin was meant to be at the festival but her boyfriend said no, don't go for whatever reason. The people I work with here, they all know someone who was at the festival or in a kibbutz."
Despite the terror, she said her mission now is to lift spirits and morale.