On October 7, 2023, IDF soldiers went on a house-to-house mission in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, trying to rescue residents from some 250 Hamas terrorists who’d brought a tsunami of destruction, murder, brutality, and hatred on the kibbutz earlier that day.

It was a perilous mission and there were casualties among the troops. As combat medic Yona Betzalel Brief attempted to treat his fatally wounded commander and comrades, terrorists shot him 13 times in the legs, back, and arms.

For the next 417 days, Yona fought for his life in the hospital, enduring two leg amputations and 20 surgeries. On November 26, 2024, he lost his final battle. The youngest of six siblings, he was just 23 years old.

Yona’s parents, David and Hazel, had immigrated to Israel from California before he was born. They were not acquainted with any of the 275 member families of Temple Har Shalom in Warren. But with a $10,000 donation to the Adopt-a-Family program of OneFamily Fund, these congregants supported the Brief family through their ordeal and continue standing by their side.

“After October 7, the most important thing for our congregation was to find a project that would keep us involved and invested in what we knew was going to be a very prolonged and heartbreaking scenario,” the synagogue’s Rabbi Randi Musnitsky said. “It was important to me that it should be a personal connection.”

At that time, she was Har Shalom’s senior rabbi but retired in June and was succeeded by then-Associate Rabbi Joshua Greenbaum.

As if in answer to her prayers, she received an email from OneFamily, an organization to which she’d donated. She presented the Adopt-a-Family option to Har Shalom’s leadership.

“There was not a second of hesitation,” she said. “Nobody asked where the money was going to come from. The feeling was that if this was worthwhile, we should do it.

“The money literally came out of our general budget because it was such a tangible way for us to engage. OneFamily matched us with the Briefs, and the congregation embraced them.”

Naomi Nussbaum, executive director of the Teaneck-based American fundraising arm of OneFamily (onefamilyfundus.org), said the organization provides financial, emotional, therapeutic, and legal support to terror victims and their families. About half of its beneficiaries are “severely wounded soldiers in the hospital and their family members; bereaved families of soldiers, and soldiers and reservists with PTSD and their family members.”

OneFamily kept Rabbi Musnitsky informed of how the Adopt-a-Family contribution was being allocated. Among other items and services, it paid for lodgings in the hospital’s adjacent hotel for Yona’s parents, and an electric keyboard that the musically talented Yona could play in the ICU.

“Yona played guitar and piano, but the guitar was too hard for him to play with his wounds,” Hazel Brief said. “We have a video of him playing the piano the temple donated for us through OneFamily. Another of our sons, Aviel, had always had jam sessions with Yona, and they could play together in the hospital despite Yona’s serious injuries. Singers and musicians also visited Yona.

“The music gave us a lot of hope, which is what we needed to get through each day.”

In February 2024, Rabbi Musnitsky and her husband, Rabbi Ron Kaplan, made the first of what would be three trips to Israel in the past 18 months.

“To make it more personal, we wanted to try to meet the family,” she said. “So we came to the hospital and spoke with Yona’s father, David, in the waiting room. Hazel would not leave her son’s side; we met her a few days later.”

Rabbi Kaplan insisted that they not go to the hospital emptyhanded. Finding no stores open before the meeting, he looked through the abundant supplies they’d brought along and chose two items: a large bottle of Advil and a big bag of Ghirardelli chocolates.

“Of course, I’m yelling at my husband the whole time, ‘You cannot walk in with this! How are we going to explain this?’ But Hazel told us she literally cried to receive these gifts. She said, ‘I need the Advil so badly, and it’s one thing you can’t get here.’ And the sweets reminded them of a trip they took with Yona to the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company in San Francisco. So after that we continued to come with Advil and Ghirardelli chocolates.”

Other congregants went to Israel on subsequent solidarity missions, in July 2024 and April-May 2025.

“Both times we had the opportunity to meet the family, which was important to everyone on these trips,” Rabbi Greenbaum said. “We needed to go there and embrace them. We needed to tell them that they weren’t alone, that they were part of our family.”

Dr. Alan Krieger and his wife, Laurie, were on the July 2024 mission. Dr. Krieger, a urologist, said that speaking with David Brief in the hospital lobby touched him personally and professionally.

“I was struck by the strength of Yona’s dad,” Dr. Krieger said. “It was almost as though his energy was shining on us and ours on him.

“As a father, my heart started to break. As a physician, I was hearing what Yona was going through and thinking what might happen. I tried to offer some insights.

“But just being there was a simple act of kindness. Like making a shiva visit, it’s what we’re supposed to do. It was our way of giving them a hug. I hope that our love and kindness was a bright light that overshadowed all the evil and hate.”

Rabbi Greenbaum noted that after this unforgettable encounter, Dr. Krieger decided to begin pinning a yellow ribbon on his white doctor’s coat to signify solidarity with the hostages in Gaza.

When Yona died, Rabbi Greenbaum sent out the same type of announcement that he does for any death in the congregation, “because for us, it was just as if a member of our congregation had passed away.”

Across Israel, stickers featuring the faces and quotes of fallen soldiers are plastered on public walls, bus stops, and train stations. In June, Har Shalom confirmation and graduating seniors received a copy of the sticker bearing a photo of Yona Brief along with his quote, “Life is unpredictable. The strength to choose our response is in our hands.”

Yona’s death did not end Har Shalom’s relationship with its adopted family. “It wasn’t something that we wanted to check off the list and say, ‘Okay, unfortunately, now that’s finished, and so we’re going to move on,’” Rabbi Greenbaum said. “We are there to support the Briefs.”

On Israel Independence Day of 2025, the first since Yona’s death, Har Shalom congregants who were in Israel on a mission invited David and Hazel Brief to have breakfast with them at their Tel Aviv hotel. When Rabbi Greenbaum told Ms. Brief “how much we appreciated her strength in coming to see us despite their grief, she said to me, ‘We had 417 days with Yona — that’s 417 more days than so many people got,’” he reported.

“And that’s a message I’ve taken with me — that life is a gift. That a mother in her situation, whose son gave the ultimate sacrifice, would still have that mentality has been moving to us.”

Rabbi Greenbaum presented Yona’s parents with an album containing pictures, letters, updates, and prayers that had been sent out by Har Shalom on Yona’s behalf.

“It was important for them to know that this community, which they really don’t know, is by their side,” Rabbi Musnitsky explained. “They have never been to Warren, New Jersey, and they’re a much more traditional family. We are a Reform congregation — which never in any way was an issue — and we wanted them to understand how we were remembering Yona throughout the 417 days and memorializing him afterward.”

Ms. Brief, who grew up in a Reform household before becoming Orthodox in her religious orientation, praised OneFamily for facilitating the connection with Temple Har Shalom and “providing whatever we needed.

“What we experienced, like a lot of others in Israel have experienced, is that these denominational divisions don’t matter,” she said. “They’re irrelevant. We are one people. The temple embraced us, loved us, and wanted to help. They have been so sensitive and very genuine.”

Ms. Brief told Rabbi Greenbaum that Yona had often donated blood during his army service and regretted not being able do so when he was hospitalized. His parents have designated Yona’s birthday for an annual blood drive in Israel. Rabbi Greenbaum said that Har Shalom is “going to try and piggyback on that through the American Red Cross and have kind of a symbiotic connection by collecting vials of blood in Yona’s memory” — another potential ongoing point of connection between the Briefs and their friends in Warren.

Meanwhile, Temple Har Shalom recently made additional donations to Israeli charitable organizations, including $5,000 to OneFamily.

“There is nothing political about them, so this was an excellent way for our congregation to engage where there is no question about our love and loyalty and support of Israel,” Rabbi Musnitsky said. “Any congregation can choose to do this because all you are doing is saying, ‘I love my country and I love our people.’ Period.”

Rabbi Greenbaum echoed that sentiment. “We are just another congregation trying to figure out how we can be impactful in this era in which we find ourselves,” he said. “This is not about us. It’s about the Briefs and the sacrifices and the struggles that they’ve made. And that has been the most impactful thing, trying to put real lives and real situations in front of our congregation to help them realize these are not just news headlines.

“These are actual people who are living through this and have something they can teach us.”

He wrote to OneFamily: “We have come to know and hold Yona’s family close, and their pain has become part of our community’s story. After returning home, we knew we couldn’t just move on. While we understand the road to rebuilding will be long and complex, we want to contribute to that healing in whatever way we can.…

“We hope this offering can serve as a small act of love, remembrance, and rebuilding.”