Edut 710 launches digital database documenting October 7 civilian heroism - Hannah Brown

 

by Hannah Brown

The Civilians at War project represents two years of listening and documenting by the Edut 710 staff.

 

DEFENSE SQUAD from Kibbutz Kerem Shalom reenacts a moment for Edut 710.

(photo credit: Kfir Amir/Courtesy Edut 710)

 

Edut 710, an organization that collects and presents digital documentation of the Oct. 7 massacre (www.edut710en.org), has just launched a new project to mark the second anniversary of the outbreak of the war: public testimonies of rapid-response squad members and civilians who stood on the frontline to defend their families, homes, and communities.

This interactive project is called Civilians at War. Its unveiling represents two years of listening and documenting by the Edut 710 staff.  

Edut 710 is a nonprofit organization established two days after Oct. 7. It began to collect and record survivor testimonies on October 9, in Eilat and at the Dead Sea. For approximately a year and a half, the organization operated on a volunteer basis, and even today most activities are carried out by 400 dedicated volunteers.

To date, more than 1,700 personal stories have been collected, with over 800 testimonies already published online after thorough editing by teams, with several professionals working on each story. Many of the accounts have been translated into English, Arabic, Russian, French, German, and Spanish.

The site allows users to search for testimony from varying locations, such as towns, kibbutzim, military bases, cities, and the Supernova music festival. 

SCREEN GRAB shows images from the Civilians at War section of Edut 710. (credit: Courtesy Edut 710)

The content is displayed on a digital platform developed specifically for the project called NarraCiv (a fusion of the words “narrative” and “civil”), which layers the documented materials across a timeline and a 3D map. Thus, users take part in a virtual and interactive tour, selecting their own viewing path from among many points of view, thereby creating a personalized experience. The project has been developed in partnership with Xsite, developer of the NarraCiv application.

The Civilians at War section currently focuses on Kibbutz Sufa, where three people were killed and where the kibbutz defense squad fought heroically on their own for close to six hours. 

The ordeal of the Sufa residents on that dark day is documented by means of a timeline. Users can click anywhere on it and watch testimonies and videos. Other locations will be added. 

Micha Livne, co-founder of Edut 710 and head of the Civilians at War project, said, “The project is a living, breathing mosaic of memory, experience, and documentation. It tells the story of ordinary people who leapt from their beds on the morning of Oct. 7, threw on a shirt, shorts, and sandals – and in a moment became unwilling but courageous fighters.”

He continued, “Its uniqueness is not only in what is told but in how it is told. We tend to think of history as a straight line. But life, and certainly the events of Oct. 7, are not like that. They scatter into moments, experiences, and perspectives. Only when the parts are connected does the picture emerge.”

The Civilians at War section, Livne said, “is also a milestone for how our full digital archive will be built. But most important is the process itself. This is not a ‘film’ by a single director but a collective creation – together with the citizen fighters and their communities. Alongside them, hundreds of volunteer professionals – filmmakers, researchers, therapists, and more – contributed to create a sensitive, complex, and unique work.”

Preserving memory and history

Gil Levin, the CEO of Edut 710, said, “Oct. 7 was a formative event in the history of the State of Israel – and it is not over. Our mission is to document this history in real time, and our duty is to do so first and foremost for the people and communities who are documented. 

“Our goal is that the memory we preserve does not gather dust in archives but serves as a living and current tool for research, education, and creation, for us and for future generations. More than 400 volunteers have contributed – and continue to contribute – their time, talent, and especially their spirit, with deep listening for this important endeavor.

“The sheer scale of the testimonies, each processed by professional teams investing dozens of hours, is unprecedented – even compared to archives that have been active for decades. And we still have thousands of additional testimonies to hear and record, which include the voices of populations, sectors, and age groups that have not yet been adequately represented.”

The testimonies will eventually be preserved in the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem as well.

The organization draws on the work of the late Prof. Dori Laub, a Holocaust survivor and psychoanalyst at Yale University, who emphasized that testimony empowers witnesses by granting them control over their stories and recognition from their listeners.

To make the testimonies as accessible as possible, Edut 710, in partnership with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is building an AI-based archive. 

The staff of Edut 710 are working as quickly as possible to collect as many testimonies as they can before memories fade. Edut 710 has also launched a crowdfunding campaign via GiveBack to support and expand its vital activities.

Hannah Brown

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/culture/article-869893

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