Mother keeps daughter’s memory alive

As the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel approaches, survivors, former hostages, and family members of those who were kidnapped and those who were murdered continue to speak publicly about the horrors of that day and the irrevocable way in which that day changed their lives. Addressing diplomats, dignitaries, government officials, and synagogue congregations worldwide, they speak candidly about their losses, grief and fear, and sometimes their disparate views about how a lingering, lethal and seemingly irreconcilable conflict can be resolved.

Jacqui Vital is one of those speakers.

A dual Canadian-Israeli citizen, she recently completed a Western Canada speaking tour, which included a stop in Winnipeg. That talk was sponsored by Congregation Shaarey Zedek in partnership with other local agencies, including the Christian organization Bridges of Peace Canada.

Vital’s reason for speaking publicly is simple and straightforward. She does not want her daughter, Adi Vital-Kaploun, to be forgotten. Adi was one of eight Canadian-Israelis murdered on Oct. 7.

Adi lived with her husband Anani and their sons, three-year-old Negev and six-month old Eshel, on Kibbutz Holit, three kilometres from the Gaza border. Adi and Anani had moved to the kibbutz with a group of other young idealists a decade before to help rejuvenate the community.

As Hamas terrorists infiltrated the kibbutz on that fateful morning two years ago, Adi rushed her children into their home’s safe room and instructed her father, Yaron, who was visiting for the weekend, to move into the safe room in the guest house where he was staying.

At the time, Vital was visiting family in Ottawa.

“I woke up and saw a red alert on my phone, and didn’t understand why,” Vital recalls. “I called my husband right away and he told me he was in the safe room. He had to whisper because he was afraid someone would hear him.”

After exchanging a couple more messages with her husband, Vital, deeply concerned about Adi and another daughter who lived near Gaza, turned on the television news.

“The first thing I saw was what the whole world saw,” she says.

Several hours passed before Vital heard from Yaron again. He had been rescued from his safe room and Adi’s children had been located after being kidnapped and then inexplicably released at the Gaza border.

“We can’t find Adi,” Yaron told his wife.

The assumption was that Adi also had been kidnapped and taken into Gaza. Three days later, however, her body was recovered — concealed in the dark of her safe room, booby trapped under dozens of grenades. It was later learned that Adi had managed to kill one of the terrorists who invaded her home.

Vital returned to Israel as soon as a flight was available to be reunited with her husband and grandsons and bury her daughter. Those boys and their father are now in temporary housing waiting for their kibbutz to be restored.

In the months since that day, Vital has been back to Canada several times for speaking engagements. During those talks, she shares family photos and videos of Adi and speaks with tremendous composure about her daughter’s many talents, her inherent goodness, her career, her love for her children, and her courage and heroism. It is not easy for Vital to repeatedly tell her daughter’s story, she admits, but it is necessary. Speaking about Adi puts a name and a face to a number.

Adi Vital-Kaploun was a daughter, a mother, a wife, a sister, a cybersecurity engineer, a musician, a dancer and an athlete. She was 33 years old.

“There were 1,200 people murdered that day and one of them was Adi,” Vital says. “So that’s my job. To make sure she is remembered. That’s the most important thing.”

swchisvin@gmail.com

The Free Press is committed to covering faith in Manitoba. If you appreciate that coverage, help us do more! Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow us to deepen our reporting about faith in the province. Thanks! BECOME A FAITH JOURNALISM SUPPORTER