While We Were Celebrating

Melvin Cravitz was the first Jewish man murdered for being Jewish in the United Kingdom in the last 80 years.

In 2025, 20 Jews were murdered in antisemitic attacks outside of Israel. Over 800 severe antisemitic incidents were documented around the world. It was the deadliest year for diaspora Jewry this century. And when you look closely at that year, a pattern emerges that is impossible to ignore.

They didn't come for us at random. They came for us on our holiest days.

A terrorist attacked Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester on Yom Kippur, as worshippers prayed and fasted. Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby were murdered.

Gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney, killing 15 people including a ten-year-old girl, a Holocaust survivor, and a rabbi.

And during the Israel-Iran war, an Iranian ballistic missile struck a residential building in Haifa on the fourth day of Passover, killing four members of the Gershovitz family.

Yom Kippur. Hanukkah. Passover.

While we were praying. While we were lighting. While we were celebrating.

I traveled three continents, sitting with the people who lived through each of these attacks and the families they left shattered, to capture their riveting stories for the Aish original Tisha B'Av documentary film While We Were Celebrating.

Karen Cravitz encouraged her husband Melvin to go to synagogue early on Yom Kippur morning. She has spent every day since reconciling that decision, made in love and in faith. Yoni Finlay was holding the synagogue doors shut to keep the terrorist out when a police bullet struck him in the chest. The bullet traveled through his body and killed his friend Adrian, standing directly behind him. That Friday night, the typically reserved congregation danced.

Karen Cravitz

Sheina Gutnik's father, Reuven Morrison, ran toward the gunmen at Bondi Beach, using his body as a human shield, saving tens of lives before losing his own. Through the grief, through the funeral, through the memorial service, Sheina lit Hanukkah candles each night, never stopping to bring light.

Chavi Israel threw her body over her baby Meir as the shooting started, trying to protect him and trying not to suffocate him at the same time. She credits Reuven with saving her life and her son's.

Chavi Israel

Yonatan Frank, a soldier fresh out of Gaza, felt drawn to a Hanukkah celebration on the beach, found himself unarmed in the middle of a massacre, and ran toward it anyway. He helped evacuate Chavi's sister-in-law and her baby to a waiting car. Chavi, her baby Meir, Yonatan, and eight others found each other at that car and fled together, 11 people crammed into one five-seater. Once they reached safety, they lit Hanukkah candles.

Professor Lena Sagi's neighbors, Vladimir Gershovitz and his family, were found in each other's arms after an 18-hour search through the rubble of what had been their home. Professor Lena Sagi lost everything but her life. Days later she danced at her daughter's bat mitzvah. Alex Gershovitz, Vladimir's brother, still cannot speak about his family without his voice breaking. He is a self-described secular Jew who looks you in the eye and tells you he believes God has a plan.

Alex Gershovitz

Bracing myself for grief while filming, I found something else entirely. After three attacks on three continents, in three different cities, each person had the same message they wanted to share with the world: celebrate Jewish life.

This response is baked into our Jewish DNA. Across centuries and generations, from the Inquisition to the pogroms to the Holocaust to October 7th., our enemies have never extinguished our flame.

From Manchester to Bondi to Haifa, the answer is the same: live more Jewishly, live more joyously.

While We Were Celebrating, the Aish Original Tisha B'Av documentary film, premieres worldwide on July 22. Free. Register at aish.com/9av. To arrange a community screening, email jkalla@aish.com.