Israeli survivor of Oct. 7 terror attack recalls how hero boyfriend 'had this halo. It was bright, like a light'
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Americans in the nation's capital shared whether antisemitism has gotten better or worse in the U.S. since Hamas' deadly Oct. 7 ambush on Israel.
As doubts about what happened on Oct. 7 in southern Israel continue to swirl, people in the Jewish community in Israel say the lack of belief about their stories and what they've experienced has been adding to the collective pain and trauma they've suffered and are still suffering to this day.
Noam Ben David, 27, an artist and a survivor of the Supernova music festival terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023, said in a phone interview, "Israelis are crying about how people won't believe the stories. All of Israel is crying about that."
Speaking to Fox News Digital, the Israel-based Ben David recounted her stunning tale of survival — and how she remembered having a foreboding feeling before her boyfriend, David Newman, 25, picked her up at 1:30 a.m. that day to go to the Supernova music festival in the Negev desert in Israel, about three miles from the Gaza-Israel barrier.
It was Oct. 7, the celebratory holiday of Simchat Torah, which also fell on Shabbat, a day of rest.
On that day, Jewish people start to read the Torah from the beginning. Yet Oct. 7, 2023, as most of the world already knows, turned into one of the darkest days in Jewish history.
At 2:30 a.m., the young couple arrived at the festival. Newman, who managed venues in Tel Aviv, helped his artist girlfriend set up to draw at the event, she told Fox News Digital. She recalls even today how happy she felt to be dancing to the music with him.
Noam Ben David is pictured with her boyfriend, David Newman — who was murdered on Oct. 7, 2023, by Hamas terrorists at the Supernova music festival in southern Israel that the couple attended together. She told Fox News Digital she loved his "kindhearted nature," which drew people to him. (Noam Ben David)
They had been dating for a little over a year. She was in love with his kindhearted and fun-loving nature, which attracted people to him, she said.
They'd recently returned to Israel after traveling for over three months throughout Southeast Asia, and they recognized familiar faces from their trip in the crowd. Ben David said the atmosphere was "like one big family and good energy."
At around 6 a.m., the couple headed toward a bigger stage to dance with their friends.
She said the beauty of the event that morning was reflected in the sunrise.
She thought she heard fireworks — but the thunderous claps were bombs.
"It's the perfect time… Everyone is glowing from the sun, everything is pretty. It was just the best feeling ever."
When she walked over to get her sunglasses from her bag, a friend of hers told her to look up at the sky. She thought she heard fireworks — but the thunderous claps were bombs.
Someone screamed to stop the music and "just run."
The couple got into Newman's car, but there was too much traffic, she said — so he pulled over. He got some water for her and laid something down next to a tree for her to sit on, and she began singing a song to him about fireworks.
David Newman and Noam Ben David had been dating for a little over a year when the terror attacks of Oct. 7 occurred. (Noam Ben David)
"At that time, it was funny," she said, "and I needed to have a little bit of humor to calm myself. We didn’t realize what happened at the time. We said, ‘OK, it's going to be like every time — it's a couple of bombs, and then the army's going to come.'"
She added, "We didn’t realize that it was going to be actual war — and that there were actually Hamas people with guns."
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A few minutes later, a man came running toward them, shouting at them to run.
Terrorists were shooting at people who were stuck in traffic, and they heard the sharp blast of automatic gunfire. People started fleeing from their cars and running toward an open field.
‘History repeats itself'
On that day of Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists descended on the site of the Supernova music festival and raped, murdered and burned alive 364 civilians in attendance, most of whom were under age 30.
About 40 people of the approximately 4,000 attendees were abducted and taken to Gaza. Some 1,200 people were killed in Israel that day, and about 130 of the over 240 people who were abducted are still in Gaza.
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While there is denial about the tragic events of Oct. 7, a recent YouGov/Economist poll also found that some 20% of Americans ages 19 to 29 believe that "the Holocaust is a myth," and over 20% think it was exaggerated.
"David took my hand so we could run faster."
Sheryl Silver Ochoyan, project director of Echoes & Reflections at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, has noticed the parallels.
"The Holocaust is the best documented case of genocide that has ever happened in the world — the Germans kept a lot of records. History just repeats itself," she added.
And "those who commit genocide always deny it."
Destroyed cars and personal effects are still left scattered around the Supernova Music Festival site, where hundreds were killed and dozens taken by Hamas terrorists near the border with Gaza, on Oct. 13, 2023 in Kibbutz Re'im, Israel. The attack prompted a declaration of war by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
With Hamas terrorists everywhere on the morning of Oct. 7, Noam Ben David said she saw people dropping to the ground after they were shot.
"David took my hand so we could run faster, and then I fell on my face," she told Fox News Digital.
"He laid down with me, and he told me, ‘It's OK, just breathe, and whenever you feel right, we’ll get up and then run. Just calm down and it's OK."
She said she told herself, "'I'm not going to give up if he's not going to give up on me, and he's cheering me up. I need to cheer myself up and get up.' So I got up and we ran."
They found an area where two huge metal trash containers were located, both open on top. Nearby, grenades and bombs were going off incessantly.
"I'm not going to give up if he's not going to give up on me."
Ben David said she told her boyfriend, "We're going to get inside of one of those trash containers. I'm not going to stay outside — we're going to die."
People were already hiding inside both the containers and Ben David said she instinctively felt they should get into the container on the left.
(At a later point, terrorists threw a grenade over the top of the other container, and everyone inside was killed. Said Ben David, "It was a miracle that we didn’t get into that one.")
‘Really scared’
For over four hours, the couple stayed in the container with 16 other people. They kept their heads down, trying to be as silent and inconspicuous as possible.
Through a crack in the door, Ben David said she saw Hamas terrorists with guns screaming in Arabic outside.
"This is a question about death or staying alive," she told Fox News Digital. "I was really nervous, and David was all the time holding my leg, and moving his hand to calm me down. I was really scared."
She sent their location to her sister — and shortly before his own battery ran out, Newman texted a friend of his in the army to send help.
A scene from inside the trash container where Noam Ben David, her boyfriend David Newman, and many other people hid from Hamas terrorists for as long as they could on Oct. 7, 2023. (Noam Ben David)
She said she recalled that "at one point, a girl raised her head up, and screamed, ‘They saw me!’"
She said David "took me with his hand, and he pushed me more inside the container so I could hide inside the trash bags."
Ketchup spilled out onto her head, she said, and people were lying on top of her. She could feel the reverberations from the gunfire as the terrorists drew closer.
Still, her boyfriend was keeping guard and trying to calm everyone down. He assured her that the IDF would be there in 15 minutes to help them.
"I wanted to get up and help David, but I knew if I got up I would be dead."
Suddenly, the terrorists were there. They stormed into the container.
"I heard a shout, and then I heard ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and then I heard the first shot. I heard David try to breathe. I could hear his last breath. Then I heard a bunch of automatic shots everywhere… I was praying [in Hebrew], "Please, God, hear me."
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She added, "I wanted to get up and help David, but I knew if I got up I would be dead."
Suddenly, the young artist said she felt "the worst pain ever. I can feel it in my head. I can feel it in my bones. I got shot on the left side of my hip." Fortunately, the bullet that hit her did not remain lodged in her body.
She now realized that practically everyone around her had been killed, including a girl who lay motionless beside her. Some people had been shot multiple times.
In shock and refusing to accept that her boyfriend had been killed, Ben David said, "I raised my head and I screamed to David. I screamed. I begged him to answer me, and he did not."
Someone told her that he had been shot in the chest.
‘Bright, like a light’
Two IDF soldiers now entered the container with guns — she recognized them. Bleeding, she called out to them as the adrenaline racing through her numbed some of the pain, she said.
She was moved up to the front of the container, where she saw her boyfriend.
"Even though he was dead, it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw," she said about David. "It was like an angel… He had this halo. It was bright, like a light."
Noam Ben David and David Newman. "I'm going to dance again, and I will dance for David," survivor Ben David told Fox News Digital. (Noam Ben David)
Newman's text to his friend, which provided their location, saved many lives, Ben David believes.
Outside the container, IDF soldiers laid her down on the field with the other people who were injured, as shots were still being fired. The soldiers had to fight off terrorists while they drove her to an army unit.
Ever since that terrible day, Ben David has undergone two surgeries. She was treated at the Beit Loewenstein rehabilitative center in Ra’anana, Israel, she said.
She feels like her one true love is still with her, coaching her through the pain.
She also recently started walking using crutches after having been in a wheelchair for several months.
She is hoping to make a full recovery, she said.
"I'm going to dance again, and I will dance for David," she told Fox News Digital.
"I was in heaven, and hell came and changed everything about my life, about Israel, about everyone's lives. This is the guy I was supposed to get married to and have children with."
She said she feels like her beloved is still with her, coaching her through the pain.
‘Murdered because he was Jewish'
David Newman's siblings shared poignant thoughts and heartbreaking remembrances of their brother who was taken from them.
Younger brother Dvir Newman, age 23, described David as his best friend and "literally an angel," someone who always went out of his way to console other people in distress.
Noah Newman, 30, David’s older brother, mentioned how much his brother loved life.
David Newman (center) with his four siblings. From left to right, Gavriel Newman, Noah Newman, David Newman, Dvir Newman and Batya Newman-Sprei. The photo was taken in Moshav Ora in Israel, June 18, 2023. (Batya Newman-Sprei)
"He was the happiest person you could meet. You could put him in a quiet room all by himself, and you'd find him dancing."
Noah Newman also said David extended kindness to everyone. "He was a very real and honest person. He hated when people would gossip or talk behind people's backs."
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David’s sister, Batya Newman-Sprei, 31, said her brother fought to be transferred to a combat unit when he served in the IDF from 2017 to 2020. "He was happy to do it," she said.
She said that the siblings' loss of their mother to cancer over seven years ago made them extremely close as siblings. "When David got murdered, it was even harder than then it would normally be," she said.
"He risked his life. He stayed cool. He helped people the whole time."
Jeff Seidel — whose daughter, Moriah, is married to David’s older brother, Gavriel Newman, 28 — said David was like his own son.
"I'm embarrassed that I might have teased him and joked with him too much," Seidel said. "I didn't realize until now that I had a big tzaddik [a righteous person] sitting next to me."
He added, "He risked his life. He stayed cool. He helped people the whole time. While [the terrorists] were shooting, he knew how to respond to the situation, while most people would probably get nervous and freak out."
Seidel added, "He was murdered because he was Jewish, like everybody else [at] that party."
Although he is still grieving, Seidel said he knows that David Newman is in heaven.
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"[This is] called in Hebrew a Kiddush Hashem. You were killed for the sanctity of God."
On Feb. 20, Jeff Seidel's daughter Moriah — married to David's older brother — gave birth to a baby boy.
They named him David Ori — which means "my light" in Hebrew.
For more Lifestyle articles, visit www.foxnews.com/lifestyle.
Eve Glover is a contributing writer for Fox News Digital.
