I Can Promise You

How can a young person who suddenly loses both parents in a terror attack move forward through the paralyzing darkness, engulfed in crushing agony and despair?

When the world is crashing down, someone who’s been there and traversed the pain to the other side can provide a framework for healing. OneFamily matches recent victims with a circle of people who understand how one act of terror changes everything forever

“Everywhere I go in life, every stage I enter, I do so accompanied by my 17-year-old self. She’s always there, in the background, waiting to be noticed, to be nurtured. But mostly, she is mourned.”

Tamar Kol-Kapach was 17 years old, the second of three children, when her parents left her and her 15-year-old brother for Shabbos. It was just a few weeks before the scheduled disengagement from Gush Katif, and Tamar’s aunt wanted her sister and brother-in-law to spend Shabbos with them in their home in the town of Yamei Tal before it was slated for destruction.

“We waited for my parents to come home on Motzaei Shabbat,” Tamar remembers. “We waited and waited. Hours passed. It wasn’t like them at all. And then, my older sister and her husband walked in. And right then, I knew. My parents were never coming home.”

Dov and Rachel Kol of Jerusalem were shot and killed in their car by terrorists on the 17th of Tammuz, 2008. That was the moment that Tamar’s childhood ended.

Back then, she would have never dreamed that not only could she heal and rebuild, but that one day she’d find herself on the other end: giving support, encouragement, and hope to newly bereft victims of terror. It took the initiative and insight of Marc and Chantal Belzberg, founders of the OneFamily organization, to transform Tamar from a victim to a healer.