Joel Goldenberg – The Suburban LJI Reporter
It’s usually a cliché to say “you could hear a pin drop” to describe a silent, rapt audience listening to a compelling story, but that accurately describes the atmosphere at Federation CJA when former Torontonian Shye Klein Weinstein, now in Israel, described the harrowing story of his near brush with death from Hamas terrorists.
The impact was felt even more as Weinstein told the story in an understated but intense way.
Weinstein, who also showed photos and video of Oct. 7 before and during the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, told of how he attended the Super Nova music festival, in Israel, with a cousin and mutual friends, and how he made new friends at the festival.
“Some of the feelings you might have at one of these events — anxiety, nervousness, adrenaline, love, compassion, excitement — those are all feelings I felt at my first music festival on Oct. 7.”
Weinstein then, in exacting detail, told of how the attendees first saw hundreds of Hamas rockets being repelled by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, then hearing the sound of machine gun fire, how they slowly and excruciatingly left the festival grounds, and had to drive through fields where they saw abandoned cars — some with dead bodies in them.
Weinstein and his companions then had another harrowing drive towards Tel Aviv, where they passed numerous cars on the road — he chronicled the trip with video and warned those in the audience who could not tolerate such scenes to look away from what were dead bodies strewn all over the road. The occupants of the car containing Weinstein and his friends could be heard yelling and swearing in shock.
At one point, they passed Hamas terrorists who had their guns raised, but miraculously, they were not shot. They made it to Tel Aviv, and most of the people they met at the festival hid for hours before being rescued by the IDF and other military personnel. Sadly, two people they met were killed, along with 258 others.
Weinstein’s understatedness was in evidence during the question period, when The Suburban asked, as someone who was present during the attack, what did he think of the global media coverage of Oct. 7 and its aftermath, and the constant pro-Hamas demonstrations taking place.
“That’s not something I’m sure I can answer well enough to satisfy what you want to hear,” he said. “I am just a photographer. My apologies.”
Stephen Rabinovitch, of Federation CJA, who introduced Weinstein, asked where the former Toronto resident gets the strength to recount his story on several occasions.
“I am exempt from IDF service, so fighting is not an option,” Weinstein said. “This is my way of fighting and this is my way of helping.”
Weinstein told another attendee that he went back to the festival grounds to view the aftermath of the massacre.
“It was an alien world. The trees were all covered in blood, tents soaked in blood; people’s IDs, phones, wallets, glasses, art, their bags, their jackets, their belongings, bullet holes in the ground and in the streets. An ambulance burnt out, wrapped around a tree; I even visited Kibbutz Be’eri…whatever you’ve seen, it’s worse.”
Weinstein also told a student that he is returning to Israel following his speaking engagements. Applause followed.
“I would not have left Israel if it was not for the faces of Oct. 7 reaching out to me — everybody I loved and risked my life for there. My mom and brother still live here in Canada. I refused a rescue flight. I will be going back to Tel Aviv to be with my friends and family after my speaking tour.”
CSL resident Stanley Grunfeld asked if Weinstein had any military training or a sixth sense that prompted his fast reaction to leave the festival with his friends.
“I’m the kind of friend who, when you’re at a party with me, I’m done early and I’m making sure everyone has water,” Weinstein said. “I’m also an older brother, so I feel like that has something to do with it. I was in a new environment, a festival, and a new situation with hundreds of rockets. A lot of things were just feeling that something was wrong, the same feeling I felt when I thought I heard the gunfire, that feeling of sickness inside of me. Whether it’s luck or intuition, or a mixture of both…. I don’t know why we survived, I don’t know why those two men on the side of the road decided not to shoot us….We left at the right time to be just in the eye of the storm, safe from everything in front and behind us. I personally think it is just dumb luck, but that’s just me.”
Beryl Wajsman, The Suburban’s editor-in-chief, said Weinstein was no longer just a photographer, but a photojournalist. Wajsman asked about the Israeli security presence during the Oct. 7 attack.
Weinstein said that “during the festival, there was security, armed security and those who were there to make sure people didn’t take too much of anything. By the time we were in the parking lot, there was no security present within that region, they had all gone to the back of the festival and they were helping people. I’m sure much of the gunfire we heard was from security forces at the festival. I’m sure an equal amount was not.”