A few months after Hannaleh Kritzman, the legendary storyteller of Kibbutz Be’eri, wrote down her life story and celebrated its publication, her family had to add the following preface to it:
Hannaleh Kritzman was shot in Kibbutz Be’eri by Hamas terrorists on the awful Saturday of October 7, 2023. She died from her severe wounds on October 21, 2023. She was 88 years old at the time of her murder.
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88-year-old Hannah, or “Hannaleh”, Kritzman was one of the oldest victims of that fateful day in October 2023. Her family took some comfort in the knowledge that Hannah had lived a full life. A few months earlier, they had managed to publish an autobiographical memoir celebrating her life. “The Story of the Storyteller” was its title. “I’m so glad we managed to finish the project while she was still alive,” says her son, Tzafrir Keren. “She was happy and proud of it. We organized a special celebration for the entire family, where she handed out a copy with a dedication to each of her children and grandchildren.”
The book, written at the initiative of her children and recounting the story of her life, is a memento of the special woman she was, who so loved books and stories. They suggested to their parents that both of them should write down their life stories for future generations. Their father refused, but Hannaleh threw herself into the process. For several months, she sat in the living room of her home in Kibbutz Be’eri, working with the author, Eli Khalifa, as the two wove her life story together.
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Running Away to a Kibbutz? – “Over my dead body!”
Hannaleh spent her early years of her life in a place that was very different from the place where it ended. She was the eldest of five siblings, born to a low-income family in the Florentin neighborhood of Tel Aviv. The family of seven shared their modest two-room apartment with another family. She inherited her love of stories from her parents, who would tell their children stories while they huddled together on the one bed in their apartment. But Hannah didn’t really have time to enjoy a good book back then. As a teenager, she had to attend evening classes so she could help support the family financially. At meetings of her youth movement, HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed (“The Working and Studying Youth”), she heard about Ben-Gurion’s call to settle the southern Negev region and about a new kibbutz named Be’eri that was about to be built there.
“Over my dead body” was her father’s response when Hannah told him she wanted to settle the wilderness, and what’s more, with such a disreputable institution as a kibbutz. “If you go, you won’t have anywhere to return to,” her parents desperately threatened, afraid of losing their eldest child. The year was 1950, and they didn’t really understand what a kibbutz was. The rumors they had heard (“They share everything there; even the children!”) only made matters worse.
But Hannah didn’t give up. With youthful determination, she ran away from home, caught a bus to Kibbutz Sa’ad, which was a few kilometers north of Be’eri, and walked the rest of the way on foot, with two boys who were the same age as her, carrying rifles they had received because there were known to be “fedayeen” militants roaming the area. The warm welcome she received from the founders of Be’eri, who were sitting and singing around the bonfire, was the moment Hannaleh fell in love with the kibbutz—a love that never faded.
All contact between Hannaleh and her family in Tel Aviv was severed for months, but it felt like an eternity. Longing for her parents and siblings tore at the heart of the young pioneer. Eventually, her mother went to consult with the neighborhood rabbi, who said, “If she went to a kibbutz in the Negev, she has done a great mitzvah, for we are commanded to settle the land.” The rabbi’s response softened the father’s heart. He relented and they reconciled. Before he passed away at a ripe old age, almost like an apology to his daughter, the father asked to be buried in the kibbutz, a request that was honored.
Initially, Hannaleh worked in the vegetable garden, but she did not excel as a farmer. As one of the kibbutz members told her: “Whether you work or not — it makes no difference.” She was deeply offended, but her anger only fueled her determination to prove herself. She decided to specialize as a dairy farmer and spent time working in the dairy, enduring the long milking hours at strange times of day and night, as an equal among equals. Together with all the young members of the kibbutz, Hannaleh joined the IDF’s Nahal program, which combined military service with community building and agriculture. Once she married, she finally found her calling. The young girl who had attended evening classes became a preschool teacher, helping to raise and nurture generations of kibbutz children.
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Generations of children in Be’eri were raised by Hannaleh Kritzman. Although she never formally studied education, her well-developed and nurturing educational approach came naturally to her. She was drawn to this work, never leaving it until her retirement.
“What was unique about her education was that she never gave up on any child,” says her son. “At that time, they didn’t know about attention disorders, but she understood it intuitively: when a child couldn’t sit still and wanted to go out and chase birds, she’d go out with him to search for them.” Hannaleh understood the children. She knew how to engage, connect, and show that together they could achieve more. She always walked alongside the children she taught, with them, not against them—never through yelling, never through force. “Even with the grandchildren, for example, if they needed to go take a shower in the evening, she’d never fight, force, or bribe them. She knew how to create a situation where the child himself wanted to get in the shower, through play or speaking with them at eye level, and there was always her tempting promise: ‘If you shower quickly, we’ll have time to read a story.’”
When Yotam Keren, one of her grandchildren, decided to specialize in pediatric medicine, she offered her assistance: Before his residency began, she’d go with him and his fellow future doctors and teach them how to approach children in a way that wouldn’t scare them. It was clear to her that she had something to teach them.
“These are experiences that children never forget”
Books were an educational tool that Hannaleh used in a particularly clever way. “When a child would disrupt the class while she was about to read a book, she would say to him, ‘Come, you have a special job to do. Hold the book for me and turn the pages when it’s time.’ She captivated everyone, even the other teachers!” said her son, Tzafrir.
Hannaleh’s deep love for books accompanied her throughout her time as a preschool teacher, but she sought other ways to bring children closer to the world of reading.
When she had the idea of establishing a children’s library in Be’eri, she envisioned it as a place where families could come together and have bonding experiences. The library was located in an old building that had previously housed the elementary school’s science lab, and Hannaleh organized it into a warm and inviting atmosphere, with colorful rugs and cushions. She would open it in the afternoons and hold storytelling sessions for the children. “She didn’t just read aloud: She used sound and motion and involved the listeners by asking questions,” her son recounts.
She planned events and meetings with authors at the local library, and the library became a vibrant cultural center. Later, after serving as an exceptionally successful cultural coordinator in the kibbutz, she was appointed the cultural director of the entire Kibbutz Movement, where she mentored cultural coordinators in many other kibbutzim.
Even after she retired from teaching, Hannaleh continued visiting the preschools in Be’eri, where her presence was welcomed by both the children and the adults. Even at the age of 80, she volunteered two or three times a week to read stories to the children, who would immediately gather around her in a circle. “She never just ‘read a story’.” her son says. “When she read Yael’s House [a classic Israeli children’s book about a young girl who chooses a wooden box as her new home], she brought a large cardboard box and let all the children take turns sitting inside it. When she read A Tale of Five Balloons, she took them outside to blow up balloons together. These are experiences children never forget.”
It wasn’t just children who fell under her spell. While retired, she traveled twice a week to the nearby town of Sderot, to a club run by the Enosh Association, where she volunteered to read stories to people with disabilities, who eagerly awaited her visits every time. “She always said she felt she received more from them than she gave them, and she never gave it up, even when she was ill,” her son Tzafrir shared.
An Unfathomable Disaster
On October 7, Hannaleh was at home with her husband Tziki, and their Filipina caregiver, Abigail Rivero. When the first sirens went off, she and the caregiver immediately entered the safe room, while Tziki, refusing to panic, insisted on staying in his armchair in the living room to watch TV.
That morning, Tzafrir watched in horror as his father sat in the living room, with the sounds of fierce battles raging throughout the kibbutz in the background. He watched the events unfold live, through cameras that the children had installed in their elderly parents’ home, mainly out of concern about potential falls or health emergencies. At some point, the cameras stopped working. Tzafrir was powerless: “I felt terror combined with an immense sense of relief – whatever happened to my parents, for better or for worse, I wouldn’t see it live.” All three survived the long hours of that awful day. The terrorists massacred people in the neighboring homes but, for whatever reason, happened to leave their home alone.
Just before morning on Sunday, a group of reservists came to rescue them and help them evacuate. The elderly couple drove in a golf cart toward the exit from the kibbutz, with soldiers walking alongside to guard them, when a terrorist who had remained in the kibbutz fired at them from a rooftop a few meters away. Hannaleh was shot in the stomach.
Kritzman was shot while she was being rescued from her home in Kibbutz Be’eri and was taken to Meir Hospital, where she lay unconscious for two weeks, sedated and on a ventilator. Her tenth great-grandchild was born a few days later, in the same hospital. Hannaleh never got to meet the baby, and she died from her wounds on October 21, 2023.
After about 20 minutes of fighting, the rescue unit managed to get the couple to a gathering point at the entrance to the kibbutz, where Hannaleh was boarded onto a helicopter that took her to the hospital. Her injury was severe, and would have been so even for a young person. Since it wasn’t possible to bury anyone in Be’eri due to the ongoing fighting in the area, the victims of Be’eri were buried in temporary graves around the country. Hannaleh was initially buried in Kibbutz Einat, and then in the summer of 2024, she was taken to her final resting place in her beloved kibbutz. The Be’eri families had to bury their loved ones a second time, a permanent, final burial, which was no simple matter and took a significant emotional toll—eulogies were written and read once more. Perhaps the only comfort was in the traditional social gathering at the kibbutz members’ club after each funeral. Hannaleh was buried next to her parents, and with her favorite book, Children’s Island by the Jewish author Mira Lobe, at her request.
“Our disaster pales in comparison,” says Tzafrir. “The disaster that took place at Kibbutz Be’eri as a whole is unfathomable—children, entire families were murdered. I lost so much more than just my mother. Adi Dagan, my best friend since preschool, who I spent all my childhood with, was murdered. I had just been texting with him that morning and promised him that the army was on the way. He replied, ‘There’s no one here’.”
Channaleh’s grandson Omer Keren wrote in her memory: “Grandma Hannah was the most optimistic person in the world. When her angelic Filipina caregiver, who bravely protected her for 20 hours in the small safe room, came to say goodbye at the hospital, she burst into tears: ‘Who will tell me to wake up tomorrow morning with a new song in my heart?’ That’s my grandmother. A woman of words, for whom words are too small. This is not the ending she deserves. She never told anyone a story with a sad ending, and her story can’t be like that either.
Grandma used to say that the only remedy is to smile, to keep creating, to love, to build something new. Just like the huge, united family she created is her truest revenge against the Nazis who destroyed her parents’ families. To return to Be’eri and rebuild it just like the paradise she built herself.”
The library building in Be’eri was severely damaged during the murderous attack in October 2023. While writing this article, I received moving news from Aliza Gad, the Kibbutz Be’eri member who replaced Hannaleh as the library director: The library building will not be demolished but will be renovated and reopened in the future.
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At the beginning of her book, Hannaleh wrote a general dedication to her readers:
“A person leaves home with a suitcase. Inside, they place love, caring, sensitivity to others, compassion, and curiosity, and then each time, they can open it to learn how to give from it to others. But when the suitcase from home is empty, they cannot develop or give to their surroundings. Therefore, as parents, we must equip our children with a suitcase full of good things.”
“After a person has gone, what remains of them? Not their possessions, not their money, but their story, whether they wrote it or told it. And now I present my story to you.”
Read more at: Lives Lost: The Works of the October 7 Fallen – A Special Project
