This is the story of my Jewish mother, Rakefet, a survivor of the October 7th Massacre from on the Southern Kibbutzim. She is an Israeli Jew, daughter of parents who escaped the Farhud in Iraq and this post is for her 64th birthday!

My mom, shaking on the phone, had been speaking to me throughout the days of October 7th and October 8th, until the IDF finally arrived for the rescue. Those days traumatised her, and she had been struggling since. I had been back and forth between living with her and living in the UK at the time, was just looking at flights for that day in the days leading into it, but something just felt like I shouldn't fly it, it was hard to explain that feeling but I now I know what that intuition was. I've come to Israel soon after. On that day she kept saying "everything is ok don't worry", even at her most fearful, she thought of my own mental health and tried to calm me down. But I knew from her voice that nothing was okay at all.
On October 7th, Hamas terrorists tried to infiltrate their Kibbutz, there were gun fights for a while at the gate, my parents hearing the gun shots and bombs meters away from them, but then one Israeli man wore IDF uniform he had in his home and went out to fight Hamas and they just ran away - they thought it meant IDF was already there when they had been hours away, and the terrorists had committed the massacre on both Kibbutzim surrounding my family's house including 14 dead at the gas station right outside of their Kibbutz.
Luckily, they were rescued, but many of our loved ones had died that day and parts of us did too, and the reality of being under thousands of rockets and left in uncertainty hearing and seeing on TV and through friends in texts the images of the massacre, videos of rapes and all forms of unimaginable brutality happening minutes away from them, had left a mark of PTSD on her with daily struggles.
But, my mother is capable of healing. She has this trait of wonder, of finding hope in impossible situations and creating poetry out of it. I'm working on translating her Hebrew poems to English, but also I thought, if jewelry making is so therapeutic for me, maybe that could help her heal as well? The act of beading and designing is a beautiful mix of unique creativity and self expression at one part, followed by a repetitive meditative part in every necklace, so I gave her many of my materials (I have an active small business) and taught her how to bead. My father, who teaches architecture and design, supports her and teaches her how to do aesthetic and beautiful designs in harmony.
I thought she'll get bored of it in a a few days, but to my joy and surprise she had never stopped! For the past few months while still in temporary accommodation, unable to return to her home since the attack, she made a stock of at least 70 necklaces! And she keeps asking me, "do you really think anyone would ever find my works good enough to own? I think I would be unfathomably happy if they would." And I always say while I can't promise anything, I believe it's possible, her designs are heartfelt and so sweet and beautiful.
It's my birthday gift for her: I sent her loads of new jewelry making materials, photographed and uploaded her works to Etsy!!!
I layered her necklaces and added my handmade earrings, photographed and uploaded listings to her own Etsy shop. Those are pretty low cost, because she cares less about how much earnings there will be and just wants the joy of making and sending her works away, the more, the happier she'll be, it's so fulfilling to create healing art and send it away to a loving home.
All carefully made by my mom in Israel with Israeli shells, Amethyst, Garnet and Agate gemstones. I only got to photograph the Amethyst purple gem creations but there are lots of green, pink, red and blue creations, let me know if you're interested!
And she also makes jewelry with the Hostages dog tags. All her creations are at a low cost ($20 to $50), they are worth more but she just needs to see it's possible and get her first sales.

Her works are available here, all of the ones headlined "Rakefet!" are hers (the rest are my own handmade works): https://genderlessbyskaly.etsy.com

Reblogs would also really help bump this post reach more people across the fediverse
Thank you so much!!

- Emmanuelle Skaly, for Rakefet <3