Faces of Iron: Adele

Stand for Israel | June 14, 2024

Adele Raemer sitting on a deck looking up

“If I had been a little less tired, I would not be here today…”

That’s what Adele told The Fellowship after Hamas targeted her home on October 7th, sharing one of those mysterious and miraculous moments that only our loving and powerful God can make happen.
You see, on the morning of October 7th, this 69-year-old Israeli grandmother should have been out in the fields of southern Israel photographing the wildflowers. She’d even told her visiting son not to worry if she was gone in the morning, because that had been her plan. Instead, Adele thanks God that she “was too tired to get up at a quarter to six in the morning.”

Adele survived. Her friends—a married couple from the kibbutz next door who did go out on their morning walk to celebrate the Holy Land’s morning glory—did not. Like many others from this close-knit community on the Gaza border, and like more than 1,200 Israelis, her friends were murdered that day by Hamas terrorists.
Born and raised in a Jewish family in America, Adele made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) as a young woman, where she married and raised a family on Kibbutz Nirim. Now widowed, Adele still calls Nirim home, living near her daughter and three granddaughters… or they all lived there until October 7th, 2023.

While Adele was locked in her own saferoom with her adult son, there were 5 other members of her family who were in 2 separate houses, also on Nirim: her three grandchildren were with her son-in-law, in a saferoom of his own, while her daughter (separated from her husband) was in a safe room all by herself, as what began as barrages of rockets turned into a terrorist invasion.

The terrorists tried to enter the saferoom holding Adele’s precious granddaughters, but her son-in-law was able to shoot one of them, and scare the rest away. While they had no problem invading homes of defenseless residents, once they knew that there was an armed person inside, they dared not enter again, thus his actions saved the girls’ lives. Adele’s son blocked their own door shut, praying it would hold. The terrorists were swarming onto the kibbutz. Hope seemed lost. And then, a miracle.

The terrorists had begun to burn down a home holding a young couple and their 10-day-old baby. The family’s calls for help brought an IDF unit, which defended the kibbutz from further attacks. Adele, her son and daughter, her son-in-law, and her granddaughters were all safe.

The family members still haven’t returned to their homes in Nirim, however. But they vow one day to return and rebuild. And they are strengthened by the faith and hope from seeing God’s miraculous hand in action, as well as from the support and love of Christian friends around the world, who have helped them and prayed for them in the difficult days since the day they were driven from their kibbutz home.