Bearing Witness: A Young Photographer’s Lens on October 7
Photojournalist Chen G. Schimmel’s new book, October 7th, Bearing Witness, is the spine of an unflinching profile by Felice Friedson that asks how a country remembers its worst day—and who makes that memory possible. In Friedson’s interview, Schimmel recounts grabbing a camera and, eight days after the Hamas attack, joining ZAKA teams in Israel’s south to document what survivors and first responders saw but the world might later doubt. The Jerusalem-based photographer, now in her early twenties, describes scenes that resist language: the smell that lingers after fire, children’s toys stained in ruined homes, and funerals where the sound of wailing can’t be captured on film.
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Two images anchor her testimony. In one, a simple hammer—“an object meant to build”—became a weapon in a house with no bullet holes, its handle scrubbed clean by volunteers intent on dignified burial. In another, relatives at Kibbutz Be’eri uncover a menorah in ash; weeks later, Schimmel returns to light Hanukkah candles, framing darkness and resilience in a single shot. She has spent months in Hostages Square, followed Nova festival survivors trying to dance again, and photographed wounded soldiers rebuilding their lives—material for a book she hopes will sit in every Jewish home and, eventually, far beyond.
Schimmel, who has worked for The Jerusalem Post and freelanced in Ukraine and Poland, plans to keep documenting the country’s recovery and to channel book proceeds to soldiers battling trauma. Read Friedson’s piece and watch the full interview for the textures this summary can’t carry—the pauses in Schimmel’s voice, the granular detail of ZAKA’s work, and the quiet resolve behind a lens that refuses to look away. As Friedson shows, bearing witness is not a slogan; it’s a duty.
