Bearing Witness Through Education
Posted on 07/11/2025 @ 06:00 AM
By Dr. Carly A. Orshan, Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives and Teen Department
As Shabbat approaches, a moment meant for reflection and peace, we are confronted by a painful truth that cries out for acknowledgment and moral clarity.
The Dinah Project has just released its July 2025 report documenting sexual violence committed by Hamas during the October 7 attack.
Based on testimony from one survivor and fifteen former hostages, the report makes clear that these were not isolated incidents but part of a deliberate and systematic campaign of terror.
Survivors and witnesses describe chilling scenes: women found stripped or partially clothed, bound, mutilated, gang raped, and murdered.
Many were executed after the assaults, and captivity brought further abuse including sexual harassment, physical assault, and threats of forced marriage.
The report included testimony from more than a dozen returned hostages.
Among those brave enough to speak is Ilana Gritzewsky, who was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz and held hostage for 55 days. She said at the event marking publication of the report:
“In captivity, I went through hell: Hunger, thirst, loneliness. Physical and psychological torture. My body ached. My bones were broken. But the humiliation, the fear, the feeling of being someone else’s property — that is the pain that never leaves.”
Gritzewsky said after passing out during her kidnapping, she awoke in Gaza, half undressed, surrounded by militants who pointed their weapons at her while groping her.
“Today — almost two years later — people still ask if it really happened. If they really raped, burned, murdered, kidnapped. If they really hurt women. If men were really harmed too. So I tell you — yes. It happened. And it’s still happening.”
(Washington Post, 07-08-2025)
Most victims have been permanently silenced, either killed during the attacks or wounded with trauma so deep they cannot tell their stories.
This report is a call to action. It demands recognition of these acts as crimes against humanity, legal accountability, and firm condemnation of sexual violence used as a weapon of war.
At CAJE, we believe education is one of the strongest responses to injustice.
Through programs like the Leo Martin March of the Living, we teach teens how hatred and dehumanization evolve over time, how vital it is to bear witness, and steps to becoming upstanders.
When our students stand at Auschwitz or Majdanek, they hear firsthand from survivors.
They return with newfound purpose and motivation to speak truth, to commit deeply to their Judaism, and to stand up for the State of Israel and the Jewish people.
The same forces that shaped the Shoah — silence, distortion, and hatred — still persist.
That is why CAJE remains committed to educating about misinformation and equipping our youth to respond with courage and clarity.
Let us honor the women and men whose voices were stolen by telling their stories, by holding space for hard truths, and by raising a generation committed to dignity and security for Jews and all people.
Now is the time to empower the next generation!
Interest forms for rising 12th graders for the 2026 Leo Martin Miami March of the Living are available HERE.
If you know a rising 10th or 11th grader ready to grow, lead, and engage with their Jewish identity in meaningful ways, please tell them about Diller Teen Fellows and have them visit DillerMiami.org to learn more.
