As we mark the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, our hearts, thoughts and tears are with those who were killed that day. It was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust; and dozens of people of other faiths, cultures and nationalities in southern Israel also lost their lives, or were among the more than 200 civilians taken hostage to Gaza.
The loss and unspeakable violence changed the country, and forever altered countless individual lives and families, in ways still to be processed.
While the personal and national grief remains paramount, it is also clear that Oct. 7 and its aftermath have changed our company, transforming the type of communications work we do and how we do it.
For years, we worked almost solely with Israeli tech startups and multinationals. Our clients were spread across an array of industries and included everything from unicorns and publicly traded companies to tiny upstarts. But at the end of the day, we were a B2B company trying to make our clients and their tech solutions stand out in their fields and in the thriving Tel Aviv hightech world.
When we returned to work, remotely, the day after the attack, we learned that some of our clients had lost employees; others had rushed to report to reserve military duty. Some companies wanted to put out statements right away, reassuring their overseas customers that business would continue as usual. Some companies wanted to remain quiet, suddenly unsure of what it meant to be Israeli or Jewish in this new reality. Within a matter of days, we went from navigating funding announcements, investment conferences and thought leadership articles to helping clients facing grief, trauma, and war— along with unraveling geopolitics and dealing with a new wave of antisemitism.
As an Israel-based team, we also realized through our own personal daily interactions with neighbors, friends and family that there were many other people who needed help communicating with the media and the wider world. And there were many stories the world needed to hear: It seemed like everyone knew someone who had been killed—or who had miraculously and heroically survived or helped others survive. Families in our own neighborhoods were missing loved ones who had been taken hostage. Teenagers were turning their youth movement headquarters into refugee centers for people from the south. Doctors, psychologists and other professionals were donating their time to deliver life-saving care. School and work were once again relegated online for the foreseeable future, like during the Covid pandemic. Missiles and air-raid sirens, along with funerals, continued in the days and weeks that followed the attack as Israel was pulled into war on multiple fronts.
We began connecting some of these ordinary people doing or experiencing far from ordinary things with journalists from media outlets around the world. We connected a German speaker from the southern town of Netivot with a major European broadcaster to talk about the scenes she witnessed that day and how she and her family coped with fear and survived. We arranged the first large press conference for family members of Americans taken hostage. We also helped shocked family members of hostages write op-eds that were published in the world’ s biggest media outlets, pleading for help, or simply describing their loved ones and how they needed them returned. And we embarked on what was to become a years-long campaign to raise awareness and advocate for all of the hostages, helping keep their names in the news until they were each brought home.
In addition, our long-time clients needed assistance telling stories and processing the aftermath of Oct. 7. An NBC-affiliate station in St. Louis featured a story on how an Israeli agrotech company with a local subsidiary was dealing with the loss of an employee and his wife. A German business daily wrote about the emotional and mental challenges of being an executive in Israel.
As we carried out these pro-bono and extra projects in the first months after Oct. 7, we had numerous nonprofit organizations approaching us and asking us to help tell their stories in a world that had been forever changed. We have not stopped adding these types of organizations to our client base. So while we continue to serve tech clients, we are also working with healthcare organizations, policy think tanks and non-profits involved in nearly every aspect of Jewish life, from Hebrew language instruction to informal education to rabbinical studies. These types of clients now make up a significant part of the work we do.
It has been humbling and a privilege for everyone on our team to be part of this work. We have played a small part in telling the unfolding story of the Jewish people, helping organizations secure the financial support they need to change lives, and keeping pressing issues like antisemitism and extremism in the public eye.
The experiences of Oct. 7, on both a personal and professional level, have also taught us that the world can change in a day. We understand more clearly how vital communications are during a crisis, how a story really matters, even if it’s about one person, one family or one small organization. In addition, we have closer connections with clients, having lived through some of the same national experiences as of our Israel-based clients, including the rounds of war with Iran, and more deeply understand how to integrate personal experiences and emotions into public communications.
We take these lessons and experiences with us as we serve all kinds of clients. Whether it’s for a nonprofit organization or a tech company, we are better prepared to deal with uncertainty, adversary, and to find a way to keep clients’ voices alive and relevant in the world, no matter the challenges they or those around them are facing.
