ONE DAY
IN OCTOBER
Forty Heroes, Forty Stories
By Yair Agmon and Oriya Mevorach
Published by Koren Jerusalem – The Toby Press
One day in October.
At our lowest, most vulnerable moment, heroes emerged.
One Day in October is an ambitious and unique literary project, offering readers an intimate look at forty true heroes, told in their own voices.
All the stories take place within those twenty-four hours, in the same beautiful region. Once you start reading, you won’t be able to put the book down.
Unforgettable heroes. Unimaginable stories. Amidst the chaos and sorrow, these narratives offer readers a clear moment of comfort and hope.
Yair Agmon
Oriya Mevorach
Yair Agmon is an acclaimed Israeli author, film director, and columnist. He was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Hebrew Literary Works in 2022. This is his seventh book.
Oriya Mevorach is a bestselling author, lecturer on Judaism and philosophy, and editor-in-chief of Maggid Books’ Hebrew division. This is her second book.
Working from interview transcripts, Yair Agmon and Oriya Mevorach artfully crafted compelling first-person prose narratives. Using the interviewees’ own words in their authentic immediacy, these monologues gently touch on the darkness, the sadness, but also the light, the beauty, and the human grandeur that resonated on that day.
They aimed to tell the story of ordinary people who, on one tragic day, became heroes. All texts were reviewed and approved by the book’s heroes.
Forty heroes—men, women, religious, non-religious, civilians, soldiers, Jews, non-Jews, and even children—compose this mosaic of heroism.
Heroism in this book is understood broadly and generously. Alongside stories of soldiers who eliminated terrorists, you will find different kinds of heroism; an elderly man who sat in his chair and sacrificed his life to save his family; a mental health patient who survived five days in Shuja’iyya; a midwife who turned her home into a field hospital; a child who tried to save her family; a ZAKA volunteer who insisted on preserving the dignity of the fallen; and a United Hatzalah volunteer who made sure a love letter found in a fallen soldier’s pocket reached its destination.
“I’ve been in many encounters and many firefights in my life, but it never felt like this; it never even came close to this. this time I accepted death, I came to terms with death, I understood that’s how it is. I remember looking up and apologizing to my children; in my heart I begged them to forgive me – they’re so little, and so cute, and I’d never come back to them, never see them again. That was it; I saw this was really the end. And then I said to myself, “Okay, if this actually is the end, then I’ll end it well. I’ll die standing tall. I’ll do the very best I can, and I’ll fight until my last drop of blood.”
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