Oriya Ness Berlin Tells Her Survival Story At Jewish Student Union Event

On Tuesday, September 30, the Jewish Student Union (JSU) hosted a guest speaker event in the auditorium from 2:50 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. with Oriya Ness Berlin, an Israeli survivor of the October 7 terror attacks.

Berlin, a 21-year-old from a fourth-generation small village in central Israel, was part of the Israel Defence Force (IDF) Observers—an exclusively female branch with a purpose that is purely defensive. In the IDF Observer unit, Berlin monitored Israel’s borders by detecting and identifying missile threats, checking surveillance, and giving early warnings to communities to protect them. Because of this experience, her dream job was to transfer into Reim Base, a highly selective division that protects the borders of the Gaza Strip, which Berlin eventually achieved.

Berlin’s training course concluded on October 4. She was told to report to Reim Base just a day later, despite there typically being a week break between the end of the training course and new recruits transferring to their new base, since it was under high risk of an attack.

For Berlin, her day started with a missile barrage that she dismissed as a thunderstorm or heavy rain. Not knowing what was about to happen, she even said, “I wish it could be like this forever.” Later that morning, Berlin and her friends were told to go to a safe room, which they thought was just a false alarm, but eventually realized “it was anything but normal,” Berlin said.

They began to hear screaming, gunshots, and singing in Arabic from Hamas. “We didn’t hear any return fire,” Berlin said. She said that one can hear the differences in the guns that are being used, and she didn’t hear any gunshots that sounded like they were from Israel, which was the scariest thing for her. Berlin texted her loved ones goodbye just in case she didn’t have the chance to in the future.

Since the safe room was not locked, Berlin shut the door gap with a sock she found on the floor. She later elaborated that it wasn’t locked for the safety of the people inside. If missiles fire on the base, a locked door might trap people inside so they can’t leave. Additionally, rescue services can go inside and save you more easily with an unlocked door. Prior to the attacks, no one ever thought terrorists would infiltrate the base. However, Hamas had been planning this attack for 10 years, so they had a lot of intel to execute their plan successfully. “Hamas’s mission was to kill or kidnap as many soldiers in the base,” Berlin said.

At 2:00 p.m., a fake WhatsApp message was sent in her base’s group chat by the commander. The message told them to scream צה״ל (Tzahal), the Hebrew acronym for the IDF, but Berlin’s group decided not to follow the instructions because they sounded suspicious. On the contrary, the safe room next to them fell for the bait. “I heard the most amount of gun shots [ever and] then silence,” Berlin said. They stayed in that safe room until 7:00 p.m., when they started hearing Hebrew instead of Arabic. The team outside was Sayeret Matkal, a premier special force unit in Israel. When Berlin’s group called out to them, Sayeret Matkal told them to come out.

 Berlin immediately noticed that it looked nothing like it did in the morning—Reim Base was on fire, with bodies lying around and blood everywhere. “It looked like a zombie apocalypse,” Berlin said. While Sayeret Matkal did not reveal their faces, you could see their eyes, and Berlin said she could see everything would be okay from their eyes.

Everyone in the base was sent back home and excused from returning due to the traumatic experience. Berlin decided to return just one month later, but later transferred units for her mental health. She then became a spokesperson for the IDF diplomacy office and was awarded the highest merit a soldier can get in the IDF: the President’s Medal of Distinguished Service. She was also involved with the Red Cross and now travels around the world to tell her story. Berlin honors and remembers her fallen friends by being a spokesperson and keeping their stories alive. She also does tours in the outpost and shows kidnapping videos that are graphic and hard to watch, but necessary so people know what happened. Berlin’s goal is to share as much as she can about her friends and let their stories, faces, and energy be heard.

The JSU partnered with a non-profit organization called Faces of October 7th to set up the event, highlighting the importance of raising awareness within the Stuy community about the attacks. “In the past few years, we’ve had smaller events, but we really want to go out with this one because this year we had a whole new board, so we really wanted to make a statement. And obviously, this is the best thing we could have done because it’s also really important for the school to know about,” junior and JSU vice president Stanley Heller said.

Organizing the event required a lot of preparation on the JSU’s part, including finding the money to pay for the event and setting up accommodations for the guest speaker. “We have to coordinate with the organization, with the speaker. What time are they going to come? How are they going to come? How are we going to pay for it? How are they going to stay at a hotel? We have to coordinate with the school, get permission, [and] work with [the administration] to make sure there’s security,” senior and JSU outreach director Samuel Sunko said.

As for Berlin, when asked what keeps her going after such a traumatic experience, and why she went back to work at Reim Base, she replied that, to her, she didn’t have a choice. “I have two options: I can either sit and cry, or get up and do something about it,” Berlin said. She also added that she used to get really mad over small things, but after the attack, she gained more perspective on the world and learned to appreciate what she had. “How could I complain,” she said, “when I have a home and family […] and I’m alive?” She reminds herself that she was fortunate and expresses gratitude: “I’m so grateful that I’m alive. I can’t take that [life] for granted.”