Israel Stories:
The Fallen Canadians
of October 7th

Judih Weinstein Haggai

74, Kibbutz Nir Oz

Judih Weinstein Haggai - 50% Tall

Judih was born in New York and moved to Toronto with her family at the age of 3. In the 1970's, after her university studies, she came to Israel as a kibbutz volunteer. There, she met her husband Gadi Haggai, a Jazz musician, and they were described by many as a "power couple," united in their love for life and for people.

Always a person who loved to learn, to dream and to think, devoting much of her early life to studying a number of different subjects.

Judih was also a talented writer, and would compose daily Haikus - traditional Japanese three-line poems - as an outlet to express her thoughts and observations of the world. She was moved by every bird, butterfly or jackal the passed her by:

white flower
full bloom flaunting
for one rare moment

When Judih and Gadi unknowingly gathered with their children for the last time, they gave them a long embrace, not realizing that this meeting would be their last. On the morning of Simchat Torah, the couple went for their regular morning walk around the kibbutz, when rockets flew over their heads. Judih sent her friend a video of the missiles flying over her just before a motorcycle with Hamas terrorists sped in their direction killing both her and her husband.

Judih was a loving mother, wife and friend, a wonderful educator and caregiver, with a sense of humor, and a sensitive poet who believed in the power of life.

May her memory be blessed.

The couple raised four beautiful children on Kibbutz Nir Oz, a tranquil community on the Gaza border surrounded by vast fields and abundant nature. There, Judih developed a passion for meditation and mindfulness and used it to help children with special needs and attention difficulties in her community. As part of her specialization in meditation, she developed the ClassRelax program, which encourages the use of meditation in the classroom as a relaxing and enveloping tool.