The Toy Torah a Soldier Found in Gaza

It’s an incongruous site: An Israeli soldier stands amid the rubble of a building in Lebanon, holding a child's plush Torah scroll.

It is the kind of toy children receive for Simchat Torah, so they can join the joyous dancing with a Torah of their own. This toy Torah scroll traveled through the darkest chapter in recent Jewish history.

A Stuffed Torah in Khan Yunis

After the Hamas invasion and massacre on October 7, 2023, Avi Kramer and his unit were sent into Gaza. He served in the IDF Paratroopers Brigade's 202nd Battalion, known as the Viper Battalion.

Avi's role was search and rescue. If a soldier was wounded, he would enter the firefight and extract him to safety.

For the first months of the war, Avi was stationed inside Gaza, returning to Israel for only a few days each month. Toward the end of 2023, his unit was operating in Khan Yunis, a major Hamas stronghold in the southern Gaza Strip and the hometown of Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the October 7 attack.

Beneath the city, Hamas had built an extensive network of tunnels, weapons facilities and command centers. Israeli hostages were also held there. Avi's unit was in the midst of rooting out terrorists when his fellow soldiers searched a seemingly ordinary apartment.

There were signs that terrorists had been there only a day earlier. Apparently fleeing as the IDF closed in, they left behind guns, ammunition and combat gear.

Then Avi heard a soldier's excited voice crackle over the radio: "I found a child's toy," the soldier called out. "A stuffed Torah scroll.”

Simchat Torah is one of the most joyous days of the Jewish year. Adults dance in synagogue with Torah scrolls, while children wave flags, ride on their parents' shoulders and carry toy Torahs of their own.

On Simchat Torah 2023, that dancing was shattered by sirens, gunfire, murder, and kidnappings.

That plush toy, embroidered with the words "Rejoice and celebrate on Simchat Torah” (Sisu v'simchu b'Simchat Torah), was a remnant of a celebration interrupted, a people attacked – and a childhood violated.

Avi asked the soldiers who had found it if he could keep it. Strictly speaking, it was not a holy object. Yet it was, for him, a silent witness to October 7 and a symbol of everything the terrorists had tried to steal.

“The soldiers agreed to give me the toy as their way of showing appreciation," Avi says.

That day in Khan Yunis, that little Torah was returned to Jewish hands.

Next Simchat Torah I will Dance with It

No one knows how this child's toy reached Khan Yunis. Had it belonged to a child kidnapped into Gaza? Had a terrorist looted it from Sderot, Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz, or another community overrun that morning?

Avi on the vehicle used to evacuate wounded IDF soldiers during combat.

Avi can only speculate about why a terrorist might have taken it. "Perhaps it was a memento," he says, "their way of saying, 'We've defeated the Jewish people who live by the Torah.'"

Yet Avi knew that October 7 was not the end of the story. The Jewish people would reach another Simchat Torah. They would hold the Torah again and, despite the grief, they would dance.

Avi placed the toy in his pack and, a few months later, carried it out of Gaza. Then he made himself a promise: At the next Simchat Torah, I will dance with this Torah.

Simchat Torah in Lebanon

A few days before Sukkot 2024, Avi was called back to reserve duty, this time to enter Lebanon and fight Hezbollah. He had little time to pack, but he made sure to bring the toy Torah.

At the army base, busy preparing for the mission, Avi had no time to build a proper sukkah, so he assembled a few beams and made a makeshift one.

Avi’s makeshift sukkah in Lebanon.

His unit remained in Lebanon throughout the seven-day Sukkot holiday. Simchat Torah, which followed, was especially painful: it marked the first Hebrew-calendar anniversary of the Hamas massacre. Hostages remained in captivity, families were mourning, communities were displaced, and soldiers continued to fall.

Still, Avi and his fellow soldiers wanted to observe Simchat Torah with dancing. Yet at their makeshift army base, they needed to be very quiet and keep the lights out.

They had no genuine Torah scroll. So they danced in near-silence with the stuffed one. Surrounded by the wreckage of war, Avi fulfilled his promise.

What the Terrorists Could Not Steal

A year later, on Hoshana Rabba 2025, the final 20 living hostages were released from Gaza. The next day, Simchat Torah, Avi celebrated with friends near Meron in northern Israel, a place with special meaning for him: He had been there on the day of the Hamas attack exactly two years earlier.

This time, Avi danced with a real Torah scroll – and with the stuffed one, grieving yet still dancing, carrying the Torah forward. Terrorists could not take ownership of the Jewish story.

That little Torah, carried into Gaza as a trophy of cruelty, was redeemed as a symbol of Jewish determination, resilience, and faith.

"My hope and prayer," Avi says, "is that one day, when I'm married and have a family of my own, my child will dance with that same toy scroll."

Featured Image by Shai Yadal El-Porat