His Granddaughter Survived Oct. 7, But She Was Killed a Month Later

JERUSALEM, Israel—For two minutes, life came to a standstill as sirens shrieked across Israel Wednesday morning. 

Drivers pulled over, got out of their vehicles, and stood on the interstate, some with their head bowed. This was not a siren to warn of a coming strike, but to honor those who had paid the ultimate sacrifice for Israel’s existence.  

The same siren sounded Tuesday evening to mark the start of Israel’s Memorial Day, called Yom HaZikaron, which commemorates the soldiers who have died in service to Israel, and all Israeli lives lost at the hands of terrorists.  

Tom Keating traveled to Israel from Atlanta, Georgia, to hear the sound of the sirens and be with other family members who have lost loved ones to terrorism in Israel.  

Being in Israel for commemoration events on its Memorial Day “helps us heal,” Keating told The Daily Signal.

Keating’s granddaughter, Rose Lubin, moved to Israel from Georgia and joined the Israel Defense Forces when she was 18 and later became a police officer.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Lubin was 20 and living in kibbutz Sa’ad near the border with Gaza. When Hamas attacked that morning, Lubin grabbed her gun and defended her community, and others nearby, from the terrorists. She survived Oct. 7, but one month later, on Nov. 6, a terrorist stabbed and killed Lubin while she was guarding the Shalem police station in Jerusalem.  

Rose Lubin (The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life)

“That knock on the door at 4 a.m. came to our daughter and [Lubin’s] dad. You don’t want that knock,” Keating said. “Be nice if we could work on peace a little bit more than we do.”  

When “Papa K”—the name Lubin called her grandfather—thinks of his granddaughter, thoughts of “socks that don’t match, learning how to play cribbage, getting a book that she didn’t have for me … and how she cared for her youngest brother” come to mind.  

Keating and his family were one of many families who attended the commemoration event at Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem on Tuesday evening, one of many such events held across Israel that evening.  

Dina Guedalia said her son brought joy with him wherever he went. Yosef Malachi Guedalia loved Israel, the mother said, speaking from the main stage of the Memorial Day event, and he served in an anti-terrorist unit in the military.  

When word went out of the attack on Oct. 7, the Israeli army did not call Yosef Malachi Guedalia up to fight, but the 22-year-old willingly went anyway, entering kibbutz Kfar Aza to fight the terrorists.  

Yosef Malachi Guedalia died fighting in the kibbutz near the border with Gaza, leaving behind his parents, six siblings, and wife Senai.  

“I know what it is like to watch friends fall in battle,” a former active-duty and now reserve IDF soldier told the crowd, adding, “Those are the moments when our weakness is not an option.” 

Because military service is required of all Israeli citizens for two to three years, Memorial Day “touches everyone across the country,” Daniel Flesch, a former IDF soldier and current senior policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.  

In Israel, Memorial Day and Independence Day are celebrated one directly after the other because “Israel recognizes that you cannot have freedom and independence without the sacrifice that [it requires.]” Flesch said.  

Memorial Day in Israel is “difficult to explain” to an American, Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. under President Barack Obama, told The Daily Signal.  

In America, “families get together, they have barbecues. There are a lot of sales, and you don’t necessarily think deeply and profoundly about the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who have died in defense of their country,” Oren said.  

In Israel, Memorial Day is different, according to the former ambassador.  

More than 24,000 soldiers have been killed in Israel since its war for independence in 1948, and thousands of civilians have died as victims of terrorism, including hundreds on Oct. 7.  

“This is a day of profound sadness for the state of Israel,” the ex-envoy said.  

Events celebrating the start of Independence Day were scheduled for Wednesday night, but most events were canceled after Israel declared a national emergency due to wildfires raging in and around Jerusalem.  

On highways around Jerusalem, drivers abandoned their vehicles to escape the flames that may have been caused by arson and aided by strong winds, according to Emily Schrader, a reporter for ILTV Israel News. Three arrests have reportedly been made.  

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