There is a saying: “Only a surfer knows the feeling.”
The feeling of navigating the sea – endless, shifting, impossible to control. There’s no solid ground, just motion: rising, falling, repeating. One moment you’re gliding, the next you’re underwater and breathless. You learn to balance in the chaos, to trust the rhythm, to float, and move in tandem with it. And sometimes, if the timing’s right, you catch a wave – and you’re flying.
Bereaved families in Israel live in that sea every day. And like seafarers, only they know the feeling. An exclusive club everyone dreads joining, growing ever larger.
OneFamily has had a busy year and a half. Since Oct. 7, 2023, the number of victims and bereaved families has more than doubled. The organization has helped the displaced and has been visiting hundreds in hospitals and rehabilitation centers weekly. It found new ways to get to know each family and introduce them to one another for support on their healing journeys. It meant mobilizing intensely and working hard to gain the trust of thousands of people at their most vulnerable time.
After several highly successful therapeutic trips to countries such as Ethiopia, Cyprus, and the Czech Republic, a decision was made to take some 50 bereaved brothers and sisters to Ahangama, Sri Lanka, to clear their minds.
So an unlikely, yet somehow likely, group of people came together at Ben-Gurion Airport. Singles, married, secular, religious, Ashkenazim, Mizrahim, Ethiopians, Tel Avivians, Jerusalemites, Northerners, Southerners, settlers, right wingers, left wingers, Yes Bibi, No Bibi, brothers and sisters. fathers and mothers, and children. All checked in at the ticket counter. “All these people lost a brother or a sister? It’s incomprehensible” was a thought that crossed Nadav Elkabetz’s mind. Elkabetz is the brother of Sivan, who was murdered along with her boyfriend, Naor Hasidim, in their home in Kfar Aza on Oct. 7.
“There was every spice in the rack. People in all colors. In the end, our common denominator was bereavement,” Guy Shakuri told me. His brother, Maj. David Shakuri, deputy commander of the 601 battalion of the Engineering Corps, fell during combat in the northern Gaza strip last February.
AFTER A transit of almost 24 hours, the journey had merely begun. Nestled in a gorgeous beachside resort reserved entirely for the group, who brought kosher food brought in suitcases, the next seven days were chock-full of intense activities. A daily surfing workshop with a local team, organized by GlobalSurf. Breathing exercises, biofeedback lessons, yoga classes, and an attempt at an ice bath: all tools for self-control and meditation. There was also a safari trip, boat rides, pool time, R&R, Shabbat meals, and a dance party.
But at the trip’s core was a therapeutic program with group sessions designed to help confront the two sides of the bereavement process: the trauma and the grief.
What defines trauma – its core – is a loss of control. “Grief is longing, loss, the experience of being without, of coping with what’s missing. Trauma is that moment when the ground is pulled out from under your feet,” Meirav Uziel, the chief therapist on the trip, explained to her group. “It could be the moment you got the news, the moment it sank in, a phone call, your brother’s voice – it could be anything.” Uziel lost her brother in Jenin 21 years ago.
“That moment – the one where the floor disappears from beneath you. That moment is the one that every memory later brings up again. It’s the moment of total loss of control.”
She came across OneFamily shortly after losing her brother and started working with the organization after the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
“When I want to remember my brother – he deserves to be remembered, and so do I – what comes up? The traumatic moment, much more than the joy of hiking with him or how great those times were,” the bereaved sister explained. “So I don’t remember the good; I remember the pain. And that can unravel me. It can ruin an entire day, an hour, a date, a meal – it tears you apart. Trauma rises up, and when it does, the memory becomes too much to handle.
“We need to reduce the symptoms of the trauma. Once we manage to restore some control in our lives, once we regulate the emotional flooding, then I can remember – without disconnecting,” she said. “If I can remember without dissociating, I can picture my brother in peace. With love. With joy. Totally – in good moments. And then I can find balance again.”
Elkabetz told me, “The very fact that you fly to the other side of the world to go through therapeutic workshops – the disconnection from the everyday routine – is a powerful foundation for effective healing. For me, even the surfing course was part of the healing journey. Every day in the water, trying to succeed at something I had never done before – it was amazing. The distance that allowed for a real break from routine, the surfing course as a foundation for therapy, and of course the people – the sense of belonging, of being with others who went through what you went through.”
Ahangama itself is a perfect blank canvas. Serene, pristine, and crowd-free, filled with tuk-tuks (three-wheeled auto rickshaws), palm trees, stilt fishermen, Ceylon tea, coconuts, sunrises, and gentle waves. The staff – professional and caring. And the people, ever so present with a unique Sri Lankan hospitality, proud of their identity yet modest.
“My brother did everything with a smile,” Guy Shakuri said. “He treated everything like a labor of love. He cared for his soldiers as if they were his own children. Ever since then, we’ve decided to follow his lead and forever have a smile on our faces.
“As a bereaved brother, you feel like the whole world’s against you, that everything’s upside down. The moment you go to the waves, to the calm, to the quiet – and after a few failed tries, you finally manage to catch a wave – you feel a sense of fulfillment. It disconnects you from everything happening in reality. That, too, is part of the journey; that’s the therapy.”
Shaun Tomson, world champion surfer-turned wisdom-sharer and motivational speaker after losing his 15-year-old son in an accident, once said, “When you drop a stone in the water, it creates a ripple that turns into a wave someone will ride.”
OneFamily, for the past 23 years since its inception during the Second Intifada, has created a network of support for thousands of families. Of dropping stones. Only a surfer knows the feeling. And only the bereaved know the sea. But maybe together, they can learn to navigate it. And one day they’ll be able to ride the wave they created.
The Jewish presence in Sri Lanka spans centuries, though today it exists mostly in memory. While the island currently has no significant Jewish community, evidence of Jewish life stretches back over 2,000 years.
According to the Jewish Traveler website, some believe that the port of Galle might have been the biblical Tarshish, the source of King Solomon’s famed imports. Though unconfirmed, it reflects Sri Lanka’s prominence in ancient trade.
The History of Ceylon Tea website cites 9th-century Persian records describing Jewish communities on the island.
In the 12th century, Arab geographer Al-Idrisi wrote of Jews holding influential roles in the royal court. Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela, who documented Jewish communities across Asia, may have included Sri Lanka among them.
Things changed under Portuguese rule in the 16th century. The Inquisition forced conversions and led to the decline of open Jewish practice. Those who stayed likely hid their identities or assimilated.
Dutch control in the 17th century brought more tolerance. Some Dutch Jews, such as members of the de Worms family, arrived during this time. Maurice de Worms later played a key role in developing the tea industry, a legacy that endures today.
During British rule, the Jewish community remained small but notable. Civil servants like Leonard Woolf left a mark, though never as part of a broader Jewish population.
After Sri Lanka was granted independence in February 1948 and the creation of the modern State of Israel three months later, most Jews left the island.
Anne Ranasinghe, a Holocaust survivor and poet, was among the last Jewish residents. Her life represents the final chapter of a once-interwoven identity.
Although the Colombo Synagogue no longer exists, Hebrew-inscribed graves remain. Chabad has operated in the island nation’s largest city since 2005, as well as at Arugam Bay, offering services for Jewish travelers and preserving a fragile but living connection to the island’s layered past.
According to government data, a total of 25,514 Israelis visited Sri Lanka in 2024. Most visitors head southeast, to the bay.
The writer was a guest of OneFamily.
