Oct. 7 hero shares harrowing firsthand account with Pittsburgh audience
'I'm Menachem Kelmanson...I'm from the reserves. I'm from Otniel, please open the door'
A story garnering global attention was quietly retold in Pittsburgh. Inside the recently renovated Chabad of Squirrel Hill, 37-year-old Menachem Kelmanson shared his experiences on Oct. 7, 2023.
Kelmanson, who in the past 18 months has drawn international acclaim for saving more than 100 residents of Kibbutz Be’eri, recalled spending Simchat Torah with his family in Otniel, hearing of the early morning attack near Gaza on Oct. 7, driving with his brother Elhanan and nephew Itiel Zohar to Be’eri, entering the Israeli kibbutz and spending nearly 16 hours voluntarily rescuing civilians amid Hamas’ surprise assault.
Relying on photos from Oct. 7 and Oct. 8, Kelmanson, a teacher, rabbi and IDF reservist, calmly spoke to more than 120 Pittsburghers on April 22, telling stories of bypassing checkpoints, breaching residences and hurriedly situating civilians into a recovered jeep. Kelmanson, an unassuming man with short gray hair, chronicled numerous rescues he and his family orchestrated, including that of an 87-year-old grandmother who was hard of hearing, a woman 41 weeks into her pregnancy and a nearly naked father who hid beneath shrubs after Hamas terrorists filled the man’s safe room with smoke, murdered his 15-year-old son and abducted his 13-year-old daughter.
“Every man and woman, there is a story there,” Kelmanson said.
For more than an hour — and with permission from each survivor, he noted — Kelmanson, dressed in a black polo shirt, slacks and tzitzit dangling at his sides, detailed Be’eri’s chaotic scene.
Before the attack, the kibbutz’s population was about 1,100. On the morning of Oct. 7, hundreds of terrorists entered Be’eri, killing more than 100 residents and “torturing scores,” The Associated Press reported.
By the time fighting quelled on Oct. 10, more than 30 residents were taken hostage by terrorists, according to an IDF inquiry.
Help on a holiday
Otniel, a West Bank settlement, is nearly an hour’s drive from Be’eri.
Shortly after Kelmanson agreed to accompany his older brother (a former IDF reserve lieutenant and Mossad member), the two donned IDF uniforms and headed west toward the Gaza envelope. At Be’eri’s gated entrance, Kelmanson saw billowing smoke and dead civilians; inside the kibbutz, fighting ensued.
“I never heard sounds like that in all my army service — shooting, bombing,” he said.
Outside the kibbutz, Kelmanson saw IDF soldiers from units including Sayeret Matkal, Shayetet 13, Tzanhanim and the Golani Brigade strategize. Civilians stood nearby.
“I don’t know how, but they succeeded to get out,” Kelmanson said.
Despite safely exiting the kibbutz, civilians’ family and friends remained inside. WhatsApp messages were shared.
“They were asking for help, calling, can somebody come,” Kelmanson said.
Kelmanson and his brother, later joined by their nephew, entered the kibbutz and moved between houses retrieving residents. Avoiding gunfire and bombing was one challenge; navigation was another.
In small towns like this, Kelmanson said, “everybody knows everyone,” the homes don’t have addresses and directions are colloquially delivered, “Take a left and then at the kindergarten take a right.”
For almost 16 hours “Team Elhanan,” as they were later called, ventured between houses, the kibbutz entrance and back.
Kelmanson largely followed his older brother’s lead.
“People think that Elhanan was always walking with a big smile and hugging everyone,” Kelmanson said. “That’s not his character. He was an officer — really straight and formal.”
Kelmanson’s wife, Ayelet, who joined her husband in Pittsburgh, offered further insight.
Once, during a family trip in Israel, she recalled, her car stalled on the side of the road after 11 p.m.
She called her husband, who told her to phone his brother. She did.
But Elhanan wasn’t one to answer calls and extend pleasantries, Ayelet said. “He goes, ‘Where are you? Send the location.’ And then he hung up.”
Ayelet’s story elicited laughter from attendees. Once quiet resumed, she continued: “That’s just a little bit of a taste of who he was.”
Search, rescue, return
Inside Be’eri, the Kelmanson brothers and their nephew searched for civilians.
“In the beginning, people still had batteries in their cell phones,” Menachem Kelmanson said. “People had been hiding in their safe rooms for 18 hours, 20 hours.”
As time passed, however, cell phone service ceased.
“We came to people who had asked for help 10 hours ago, 12 hours ago, and when we got to their houses we couldn’t help them anymore,” Kelmanson said. “Seeing that picture, and going back to their friends and relatives at the gate and telling them what we found was the most difficult moment that night.”
Arriving at homes where residents were still alive wasn’t much easier, he continued. “It became really difficult to convince them to open the safe room door. They were terrified.”
Hours after coming to Be’eri, Kelmanson, his brother and nephew approached a house. The three men exited the jeep. Elhanan and Itiel secured the area. Menachem Kelmanson broke into the home through a window. He announced his presence but heard no answer, then approached the safe room.
From the other side of the door, a woman asked, “Who are you?” Kelmanson recalled.
“I’m an IDF soldier, please open the door,” he said.
“But who are you?” she replied.
“I’m Menachem Kelmanson,” he said. “I’m from the reserves. I’m from Otniel, please open the door.”
Often, saying his name and place of residence spurred an emergence from hiding. In this case, however, it didn’t work.
“Keep talking,” she said. “I want to hear your Hebrew. I want to hear your accent.”
Kelmanson said he needed a way to confirm his identity.
He told her, “It was Simchat Torah today.”
She replied, “Keep talking. I want to hear you.”
“It was Sukkot. It was Rosh Hashanah,” he said.
She told him she needed to hear more.
Kelmanson finally yelled, “Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonoai Echad.”
Immediately, the woman opened the safe room door “and she started to cry,” Kelmanson said. “I hugged her. I helped her to calm down, and I took her and her sister to the jeep, and we took them out.”
Months later, on Hanukkah, Kelmanson met the woman and other displaced Be’eri residents at a hotel. The kibbutz had organized a reception to show their gratitude.
Kelmanson said he told the woman during the celebration that when he stood inside her home and yelled “Shema Yisrael” it wasn’t a prayer. It was a primal call.
“I’m Jewish. I’m here for you. Please open the door. I’m Jewish, and it’s for this reason I’m here. Please open the door,” he said.
Be’eri isn’t known for its religious observance, Kelmanson told Pittsburghers.
Long before the Hanukkah celebration or Oct. 7, concerns regarding economics, rabbinic control, mandatory military service and judicial reform in the Jewish state spurred protest and splintering throughout Israel and the Diaspora.
Kelmanson, who said his Pittsburgh talk was simply an opportunity to share “what he saw that day,” said he’s been comforted by a familiar echo: “This yell, ‘I’m Jewish. I’m a Jew. I’m here for you.’ You can hear it all around the world for over a year and a half of war.”
‘Be with me’
As nightfall arrived in Squirrel Hill, Kelmanson closed with a story. He shared how despite exhaustion, he, his brother and their nephew attempted a final rescue around 10:25 a.m. on Oct. 8.
The difficulty with entering a home during daylight, Kelmanson explained, is that one’s eyes must immediately adjust to interior darkness.
“Our flashlights on our guns were dead,” Kelmanson said.
Elhanan entered the house first. Waiting inside was a terrorist, Kelmanson said. “He started to shoot Elhanan in the chest. I saw my beloved brother falling down.”
Kelmanson rapidly approached. The terrorist fled to a bedroom. Shots were exchanged. Kelmanson’s hand was wounded. Shrapnel hit Kelmanson’s face. His eyes were covered in blood. Kelmanson tried lifting his brother.
“He was too heavy,” Kelmanson said. “He was a big man. I told Itiel, ‘Please help me.’”
The nephew replied that he couldn’t leave the doorway without risking the terrorist’s reemergence.
“We were stuck there a few minutes. I don’t know how many,” Kelmanson said. “I tried to lift Elhanan, and then I saw that there was air moving in his mouth. I know that it’s not a real sign, but I held him, and I yelled to him, ‘Be with me, stay with me.’ And then he made eye contact with me. For us, it was a really important second.”
Kelmanson said that in Otniel, the brothers and their families lived nearly side-by-side.
“Me and Elhanan were really close,” Kelmanson said. “There were two houses between us. We would sit next to each other in shul every Shabbat and holiday. Every holiday we ate together. Every summer we would go out and vacation together.”
A bond like that is transcendent, Kelmanson said. “Even during that terrifying night, the jokes are the same. And sometimes, the jokes are the things that make you miss them most.”
Kelmanson, who along with his nephew received the Israel Prize for Civilian Heroism, told the Chronicle that the Israel-Hamas war has implications far beyond its place of battle.
“We are fighting not just for the people in Israel. We are fighting for all the Jewish nation,” he said. “The hate, the anger, the cruelty we saw, people need to know who is our enemy. On the other side, people need to know that we have a really special spirit of togetherness, of strength, of courage.”
Some look to soldiers for bravery. Kelmanson said he does too, but also found it elsewhere on Oct. 7.
“I came to houses and I saw a father who was holding the handle in the safe room for over 18 hours. That taught me a lot about parenthood. I think people need to hear that,” he said. “We have a responsibility to know what happened, to know the truth, the good things and the bad things.”
Soldiers and patriarchs are part of the story, but there’s another aspect, Ayelet Kelmanson told the Chronicle.
Women and children, “who are not on the front lines,” are shouldering enormous loads, she said. “I think that people don’t know — people who aren’t left behind for a year and a half with the entire household, the responsibilities, the fear. Sometimes, it’s much more difficult to be in the position where you know you might be left alone with everything than actually going out to fight … I think that from a distance, when people don’t actually live through that, it’s not something you can actually understand.”
Standing in Chabad’s hallway, Squirrel Hill resident Debby Eisner held back tears while describing the evening.
“I’ll think about it forever,” Eisner said. “It’s a story that’ll stay with me.”
Tuesday’s program was supported by Michael and Tova Milch along with other sponsors, according to Chabad of Squirrel Hill Co-Director Rabbi Yisroel Altein.
Michael Milch called the event “unbelievably moving,” and said when he was approached about underwriting the evening he felt that hearing these stories in person “would be an amazing opportunity” for Pittsburghers. “I’m very glad that we’re able to make it happen.”
Before exiting the building, fellow Squirrel Hill resident Michal Schachter told the Chronicle she’s followed the tale of “Team Elhanan” for nearly a year and a half.
When she heard that Kelmanson was coming to Pittsburgh she decided to make him a mosaic.
During dinner, before the formal program began, Schachter delivered the gift.
The tiled picture depicts a globe. Israel is in the middle colored in gold. Beneath the map are two hands: one reaching out, grabbing the other. Encircling the image are Hebrew words with Talmudic origins. In English they mean, “Whoever saves one life is as if he saved the entire world.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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