A photographic testimony from Kibbutz Kfar Aza — October 2023
Holocaust in the Village
"Holocaust in the Village" presents a chilling yet deeply human look at the destruction left by the terror attack on Kibbutz Kfar Aza in October 2023. I photographed the scene in the days when ZAKA teams were working on site — without staging and without concealment, yet also without showing the atrocity itself. The images include burned rooms, safe-room doors pierced by gunfire, and silent homes that became living testimony. This is a documentary art project that seeks to remember, to understand, and never to forget.
How the documentation came to be
On 7 October 2023, 64 people were murdered in Kibbutz Kfar Aza and 19 residents were abducted to Gaza — among them entire families, women and children. During the massacre the terrorists looted the kibbutz homes and set them on fire with the residents inside.
I entered the kibbutz several days after the massacre, to document the ZAKA teams at their work. Access came through Natan Kenig, a ZAKA volunteer, who invited me to come in with his team. The photographs were taken while artillery fired without pause toward Gaza, under continuous sirens.
This is the closest thing to the Holocaust we have experienced since returning to our land.
As a documentary photographer, it was clear to me that my role was to document for the generations to come — even if I was about to see sights that would not let go of me. It was equally clear that the denials would not be long in coming, and that I had to document close to the event.
Symbols, not atrocities
The exhibition does not show the atrocity itself. In its place stand symbols: the safe-room door pierced by gunfire. The red eyes of a ZAKA volunteer who stepped outside for air and a cigarette. The refrigeration truck. The row of charred cars, which recalls the piles of shoes from the Holocaust.
This choice is not a softening. It is what makes it possible to look. A photograph of a child's bedroom with bullet holes in the wall, beside a poster still hanging in its place, says what a direct record of the atrocity can no longer say — because the eye closes before it.
All photographs © Sharon Gabay
Interested in hosting the exhibition?
"Holocaust in the Village" is available for showing at galleries, museums and cultural centers in Israel and abroad. The photographs are professionally printed, ready to hang directly on walls, unframed. The exhibition can be booked for a symbolic fee.
The exhibition has been shown at official institutions — posters and invitations from past showings:
Contact: sharongabay2@gmail.com · 054-2000-300
Past showings
The exhibition opened in July 2025 at the Salon Gallery of the Jerusalem Theatre, on the initiative of Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Adir Schwartz and in cooperation with the municipality's Culture Division. Entry was open to the general public, free of charge.
- Jerusalem Theatre, the Salon Gallery · July 2025 (with the support of the Jerusalem Municipality) — Exhibition page on the theatre's website
- Rehovot, Beit Dondikov · October 2024 (Rehovot Municipal Company)
Press coverage
The exhibition is authentic, it looks reality straight in the eye, and it is not easy to digest — and that is its strength.
A rare documentary record of Kfar Aza from the day of the massacre.
- Michal Galit, "Holocaust in the Village": the horrors of Kfar Aza in an exhibition opening at the Jerusalem Theatre · Kol Ha'ir, July 2025 (Hebrew) — Read the article
- The Jerusalem Post — Jerusalem Theatre — Read the article
- mynet Rehovot — the exhibition at Beit Dondikov — Read the article
- Rehovot Municipality — the "From the Seventh to Revival" memorial rally (Hebrew) — Read on the municipality site