On Saturday morning, October 7, 2023, the festival of Simhat Torah, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad launched a barbaric pogrom against the residents of communities near Gaza and in southern Israel. The terrorists—members of those organizations and Palestinian civilians—crossed the border, invaded Israel, murdered, slaughtered, burned, raped, abused, looted, and kidnapped innocent people, Jews and others, whoever was in their path.

The writing of Land of Refuge was completed before the bloodbath in southern Israel. A direct line connects the “Simhat Torah Pogrom” to the pogroms perpetrated in Ukraine at the time of the civil war (and described in the book). What was true for the Jewish people then remains true today: Israel is and will remain a land of refuge, a land of life and fulfillment, for the Jews in Israel and abroad.

Land of Refuge is dedicated to the memory of Shahar (Deborah) Troen-Mathias, the great-granddaughter of Zissel Malcah Pearlmutter, who was murdered in Derazhne, Ukraine, by Petliura’s troops, and her husband, Shlomi David Mathias.

This loyal, brave couple, whose lives were devoted to art, work, and peace, were brutally murdered while desperately protecting their son and their home on Kibbutz Holit, near the border of the Gaza Strip.

May their memory, and the memory of all those murdered, be a blessing.