Bracha Levinson

Bracha Levinson, 74, was murdered by Hamas terrorists in her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7.

Her family learned of her murder when the killers posted a video of her killing on her own Facebook page, adding to the grisly psychological torture they inflicted on her family and on the country as a whole. Family members said that the terrorists then burned her house down, and her remains were only formally identified and buried a full month later, on November 6.

Her family said Bracha — who was the daughter of Holocaust survivors — moved to Israel as a young woman, ultimately raising her two daughters as a single mother on the kibbutz, where she was known for always riding her bike around and tending to her garden. She is survived by two children, Shay and Shahar, and eight grandchildren.

Shay Shimoni, Bracha’s daughter, said that she was “devastated, I was shocked, I couldn’t comprehend the situation, it was too big to understand,” she told Sky News. “It took me many days and weeks to go to the point that I understand she’s gone, she will not come back, and I need now to try to build my life without her.”

Her granddaughter, Hagar Shimoni, told the TV network that her grandmother “was so full of love, hugging and kissing us all the time, just laughing with us.”

Shay told i24 News that her mother “loved the community, loved the outdoors, loved her small garden that she nurtured, she was full of life. She was still very young, she was very active, she worked, she was very active in the kibbutz community life, very loved by everyone, and of course a wonderful mom and grandma.”

A friend from the kibbutz said Bracha worked for many years as a teacher and child carer on the kibbutz, as well as in the local community center and shop: “You were always there, always with a bright smile.”

The friend, whose words were shared by the Kibbutz Nir Oz Facebook page, said she would often pass by Levinson’s now-destroyed balcony “and see everyone, Shay and her family and Shahar and her family — the little balcony too small to contain the joy and happiness which emanated from there… there was a special charm in the unique relationship you had with all your grandchildren over the years.”

Another grandson, Yoav Shimoni, who lives in Canada, told the ABC TV network that his grandmother “was truly the pillar of our family, and a pillar in her community as well.” Yoav told GlobalNews in Canada that “my grandma, she was the bravest person I knew… she was super confident.”

Her granddaughter, Mor Bayder, eulogized her grandmother on Facebook as “my whole world, the light in my life, my pillar of support.”

“Everyone who knows me knows what she meant to me, what a relationship we had, what a person she was, pure and good, loved her kibbutz, her garden that she cared for,” Bayder wrote. “I love you and you know it, in every chamber of my heart, in every particle of my body, in every fiber of my being.”
Source: The Times of Iarael