Chava Shatsky

In memory of Keren Shatsky

I was greeted warmly by Chava Shatsy when I visited her home in Karnei Shomron, Samaria, late one October afternoon in 2018. We had been connected by a mutual friend and former neighbour of Chava at the time her 14 year old daughter Keren had been murdered in a terrorist attack.

A beautiful child with a caring heart, Keren was loved dearly by her whole family. Chava began to tell me about her daughter, the youngest of six children, eagerly showing me a treasured photograph bearing the image of a new born Keren with a shock of dark hair, surrounded by her siblings.

“I’ve always told people that Keren brought softness into the family, there was a little more than a three-year gap between the next youngest and her. The kids were older and they just all loved her. It was amazing, [no] jealousy at all, she really brought a feeling into the family of caring and tenderness”. 

Describing Keren’s character as an infant I learned Keren walked early, cheered on by her brothers and sisters, and as she grew, she would help her older sisters. Chava reflected on Keren’s deep loyalty to her friends; how she loved to be surrounded by her family, often falling asleep during movie nights at home, content just to be with those she loved. ‘She was never negative…. sweet memories of a girl with a very very tender heart.’

Although Chava is American, Keren had been born in Israel and loved life there. She knew no other home. She was a happy, conscientious student, serious about her responsibilities which in 9th grade included voluntary work. For this, she chose to help a family with triplets. Her mother learned after her death that Keren kept her commitment to help the triplet’s mother for a couple of hours, one day a week even if her friends had invited her to join them on some other fun activity.

Chava described the devastating night of 16th February 2002, which was to change the Shatsky’s life forever. Although they were living through the 2nd Intifada, nothing had occurred in Karnei Shomron, and Chava allowed Keren the freedom to go out with her friends. The group went to the small local mall to get pizza. Whilst she was there, a Palestinian suicide bomber wearing a 25-pound nail -studded explosive vest, detonated his bomb. Chava heard about the blast, but her initial reaction did not register that this could be a terror attack- she thought maybe there was a gas leak or an explosion of that nature.

“Then obviously the search started, trying to find her; and we couldn’t find her, couldn’t find her, couldn’t find her”. They heard that all the injured had been evacuated so she and her husband, Steve, jumped into two cars in case they had to split up. They were kept at the first hospital they visited “I kind of suspected but it seemed like forever, forever, forever. When you don’t know, even five minutes seems like ages but an hour, two hours, three hours, until they finally told us. You never think when your kid walks out the door…….”  After composing herself Chava continued, “I don’t have a problem crying- even 16 years later”.

“I really think that the Jewish mourning customs are extremely helpful. You do nothing for that first week, people visit you and you have pictures all around and people tell you stories. You are learning more about who this person was that you lost, it gives you the time that you need to grieve.

A lot of people ask me if it gets easier and I say, ‘the truth is that that pain, that loss, that burden, is like this heavy pack that you are carrying around with you all the time.”

Chava reflected on the pain she felt in the beginning, when the burden was so heavy, she felt as if she weighed a ton of bricks.  

The year following Kerens murder was a roller coaster of emotions for Chava. Three of her children married that year. Her father in law died in America. She spoke at the ceremony for Memorial Day, held to commemorate lost soldiers and victims of terrorist attacks, made even more difficult as she does not consider herself a speaker. Eventually, after struggling to find the correct words during a pre event meeting, Chava tearfully expressed to the woman in charge how she really felt, she now bore the unwelcome title of ‘bereaved mother’ without having ever been prepared or knowing how to deal with it.

“People ask me how I am, and I automatically answer ani beseder . Beseder in Hebrew means I’m OK, I’m fine.…but what does it mean when I say that? Does it mean that I managed to get out of bed and go to work? Does it mean that I’m going to the supermarket and we’re eating?  What does it really mean, this beseder? Because I wasn’t really sure.”

Chava spoke about an organization that reached out to her in her grief, set up by the parents of Koby Mandell.  The lives of Seth and Sheri Mandell had been devastated on May 8th, 2001, just nine months prior to Kerens murder, when their 13-year-old son Koby and his friend were stoned to death by Arab terrorists. Sheri later wrote a book entitled ‘Blessings of a Broken Heart’. The Mandells knew that in order to go on they needed to transform the cruelty of their son’s death into acts of kindness and hope. The Koby Mandell Foundation was created, providing healing programmes for families struck by terrorism.

Sheri called Chava three months after Kerens murder and invited her to a mother’s retreat. Organised especially for mothers who had lost children to terror, this event provided a social worker, grief counsellor and a massage therapist amongst other kinds of support. Chava found this offered some hope and she was able to talk through some of the emotions she was experiencing at the time, allowing her to gain a little perspective. She still meets with people from the Koby Mandell Foundation. She also received tremendous support from friends, one even provided tennis lessons to get her outside and moving. Because of the high instance of terror victims in Israel, some strong friendships have been formed through awful situations.

When I asked Chava if they had considered leaving Israel after the attack, she stressed that no, this is their home, adding that are also issues in other countries including the United States. She feels strongly however that people need to be made aware that these attacks in Israel are still happening.

“It’s just hate. Pure hate. I think one of the important messages to get across is that people don’t realise is that its not just one person, who suddenly strapped a suicide bomb around himself and blew himself up, it’s the whole philosophy and general teachings of the society that make this an acceptable positive thing to do….

It’s the person who made the bomb and the person who drove him here. And it’s the person who planned it. For every single attack people don’t realise that there are tens and hundreds. They tend to minimize what it is and it’s not a minimal kind of a thing; it’s a very complex broad web of hate and teaching toward hate. And that’s their goal. They want to hit children and women and innocent people. That’s what terror is. For every successful attack, there are tons and tons of attempts that were thwarted. These are not isolated incidents”

As I left Chava’s house, and in the months that have followed, I have thought often about her and her beautiful 14-year-old daughter, whose innocent life was cut short by one hate filled act of barbarity. As a result of the suicide bombing in which Keren was murdered, two other teenagers also lost their lives and 27 others were injured, six seriously.

I was deeply touched by the gentle courage of Chava Shatsky, her willingness to share with me her enduring love for Keren, the incomprehensible loss she has suffered and the pain which never goes away.