Irene Zohar scrolls through her phone outside a coffee shop in Myrtle Beach, sharing memories of her cousin.
“This is him, always sending pictures from the base,” she says.
Zohar points to photos of Itay Glisko, an Israeli soldier, dressed in olive green combat fatigues, smiling with friends at a military base in southern Israel. In one, the 20-year-old hugs his father.
“He was an amazing person,” says Zohar. “He was just everything good.”
Glisko was killed one month ago today by Hamas terrorists who ambushed his base. He was among 1,400 people who lost their lives in the Oct. 7th attack on military installations and civilians at a music festival. Some 200 people are still being held hostage.
Zohar reads group text messages sent that fateful day, revealing her cousin’s final words and warning to his parents. She translates a conversation in Hebrew between Glisko and his mother in which he tries to tell her he’s okay.
“She said, ‘You’re always okay, but this situation is much crazier than usual’," reads Zohar. “He said, ‘I know. The most important thing is that you guys don’t leave the house.’”
Glisko feared for his parents' safety, two hours away, even as he was about to be killed. His mother asks for a sign he's okay. But the sign never comes. Glisko's texts suddenly stop.
“We were trying to figure out if my cousin was fighting, if he’s hiding, if he ran away, like what’s going on? Did they get to his base?”
Zohar says they now know Glisko helped get injured people to safety at a base cafeteria. Then, he took on the terrorists. But for four days, she says, the family watched the news and waited before learning the cousin she grew up with was dead.
The 21-year-old’s family is from Israel. She was the first to be born in the United States and says most of her relatives have served in the Israeli Defense Forces. As a dual citizen, she would have too if she had not gone to college. Zohar just spent a year in Israel.
“We never thought this could happen, never,” she says.
Zohar says Glisko had planned to come live with her family in Myrtle Beach after he completed his service with the IDF. He had 8 months left. And she says he wasn’t supposed to be on duty that day. A friend had asked him to switch shifts. She and her family don’t know what to feel.
“We’re sad. We’re still mourning. We’re angry. We’re confused,” she says. “Also, we feel a little happier that we’re here. But to be honest we don’t feel safe anywhere.”
A year ago, Zohar’s family found a flyer in their driveway with a swastika and the faces of Jewish leaders crossed out. She worries that as Israel retaliates and the war escalates, so will hostility against Jewish people. She closely watches those around her.
“Like, if I speak Hebrew with my mom when we’re in public or something, then you’ll have like four heads turn around,” she says. “We feel like people look at us with a crooked eye. Where are you from? Who are you?”
The Anti-Defamation League reports anti-Semitic incidents have risen in recent weeks by 400%. But Zohar says she’s willing to speak publicly about her cousin to remember him and why he was killed.
“This is not over land or politics,” says Zohar. “This is war toward the hatred of Jewish people.”
The conflict kept Zohar from attending funeral services for her cousin. She watched online as he was laid to rest and shares video on her phone. It shows a large crowd gathered around a simple, wooden casket draped in an Israeli flag. The sobs of men and women accompany music and shots are fired into the air.
“All my memories in Israel as a child are with him and his siblings,” says Zohar. “There are always pictures in my mind running, you know?”
The pictures flash in her mind and on her phone including a photo of the two sitting on bench together when they were 13 and 14-years-old.
“We were very close.”
Zohar says despite the sudden loss, the family is grateful. They had a chance to say goodbye.
“There are so many people that have been killed so brutally that they can’t even recognize their bodies,” she says.
But, she says, the family fears for their safety, in both Israel and America.
