Warning: Images in the exhibition have depictions of war and graphic content
The exhibition runs through November 4, 2026.
Museum hours: Sunday – Thursday, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
A brown and white doll abandoned at Kibbutz Be’eri after being ripped out of the hands of 13-year-old girl by her kidnappers.
A bloody handprint on a shelter wall at Nir Oz.
A young mother in the middle of a road shielding her three kids with her own body.
Two IDF soldiers weeping at the sight of a Shabbat table set with a loaf of challah in a decimated home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
Photojournalist Ziv Koren’s photographs are searing, unflinching and devastating. They are silent witnesses to the most cataclysmic event in Israel’s history.
We think we have seen October 7 through news footage and images from afar. Koren’s work forces a different confrontation: to enter the smoke and rubble, to witness the devastation at close range and to see not only horror, but moments of resilience and humanity.
With the publication of his 22nd photography book, The October 7 War, the Temple Emanu-El Bernard Museum of Judaica presents an exhibition of photographs taken over five months across Israel’s south, the home front and the Gaza border region.
The images trace a harrowing arc from the ruins of Kibbutz Be’eri to the tunnel networks beneath Gaza, from IDF soldiers uncovering weapons in a school to civilians in Tel Aviv volunteering in waves of support. From hospital rooms where returned hostages learn to walk again, to streets marked by grief, protest and solidarity. Together, they form a stark record of destruction and endurance, of trauma and resilience and of a nation still reckoning with both.
On the third anniversary of the October 7 tragedy, we invite you to mark the moment with this extraordinary exhibition, honoring the dead, confronting the reality of violence and bearing witness to the enduring spirit of the Israeli people.
Ziv Koren’s award-winning work has been exhibited worldwide and published in Time, Newsweek, Der Spiegel, Paris Match and Corriere della Sera. His 1995 photograph of an exploded Israeli bus was selected by World Press Photo as one of the 200 most important images of the past 45 years.