Proclaiming Justice with Laurie Cardoza Moore

Guest (Male): He said, if they will throw the grenades inside, what I will try to do, I will try to pick the grenade and throw them back on them. If I miss or something happens to me, you have to continue.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Shapira ejected the grenades from the shelter seven times, but the eighth exploded in his hands, killing him.

Guest (Male): Only his bare hands and his spirit.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: The fact that he showed the world that even when you see cruelty, you have to stand against it.

Guest (Male): That's what he said. That's what he did. That's what he gave his life for.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: One young man demonstrated an amazing courage that saved lives, but not his own.

I'm Laurie Cardoza Moore and this is Proclaiming Justice Podcast.

The massacre of October 7th was the bloodiest in Israel's history. Despite the deadly surprise attack and with little to no way to fight back, many stories of bravery and heroism by Israelis were witnessed. One young man demonstrated an amazing courage that saved lives, but not his own.

Welcome to Focus on Israel. In 2006, I founded Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating and sharing the message of Christian biblical responsibility to the people and land of Israel in the face of a growing global antisemitism.

PJTN was birthed to stop the silence, to wake up Christians and people of conscience to the realities of a world bent on destroying Israel and the Jewish people. That ceaseless drive to destroy the Jewish people and Israel was on full display to the world on October 7th of 2023.

On that morning, Palestinian terrorists invaded Southern Israel, murdering over 375 young people at the Nova Music Festival. Two friends at the event, Aner Shapira and Hersh Goldberg Polin reacted quickly to the attack and led others to hide in a nearby public missile shelter.

Shapira was the last to enter the shelter and attempted to inspire hope by telling those inside that the Israeli military would arrive soon. Shapira stood near the exit, telling those next to him that if the shelter was attacked with grenades, he would throw the grenades back.

For several minutes, Hamas militants shot bullets and fired rocket-propelled grenades into the shelter to kill those hiding inside. Shapira ejected the grenades from the shelter seven times, but the eighth exploded in his hands, killing him.

Shapira's friend Hersh Goldberg Polin was also throwing back grenades but lost his hand from a grenade explosion. He was able to tie a tourniquet around his arm and was subsequently taken hostage.

At least seven people who were hiding in the shelter with Shapira and Goldberg Polin ultimately survived the attack. One of the survivors later said that Aner Shapira saved our lives, and he deserves a Medal of Honor for being the angel who kept us safe.

Goldberg Polin was held hostage for almost 11 months until his body was recovered from a tunnel in the Gaza Strip on the 31st of August 2024. It was later revealed that he and five other hostages with him were executed by Hamas. His autopsy indicated he was likely shot from close range 12 days before his body was found.

How does a mother deal with such a terrible loss? I sat down with Aner's mother, Shira Shapira, an architect and urban planner with the Israeli Heritage Foundation. She shares the heart-wrenching story of her son who gave his life protecting 27 others in a bomb shelter.

Shira reflects on Aner's bravery, the profound impact of his sacrifice, and the importance of preserving Israel's heritage. This conversation highlights the unwavering spirit of the Jewish people, the sacrifices made for Israel's survival, and the legacy of those who stand in the face of terror.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are back at the NRB 2025 and we have our another interview with a government official. We have Shira Shapira, who is the CEO, the Deputy CEO of the Israel Heritage Ministry.

Now, not only does she have an amazing job and responsibility within the Israeli government, she has an amazing story. Shira, thank you so much for spending this time with us today. Tell our audience a little bit about who you are, your work with the Ministry of Heritage, and let's talk about your son. The hero.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: Yeah.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: I will tell you.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: So, I'm very happy that we are talking together. Thank you very much.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Thank you.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: I'm an architect, an urban planner, and I work the last six years in the Ministry of Heritage. It's a governmental office. We are responsible for the tangible and intangible heritage in Israel, which means that we usually regular life before the 7th of October, we do

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Okay.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: First of all, we document heritage.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Okay.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: Then we have to sometimes save the heritage from getting ruined or falling apart. And our goal is to to connect the people in Israel with their heritage. So we want to connect people to the heritage.

That's what we do on regular days. Since the 7th of October, we understood that our ministry that we have to go and really rush against time in order to document and to save all the artifacts in the Gaza envelope in order to make sure that the stories will be with us forever.

We have 1400 cars

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Oh my gosh.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: 1400 cars on the route 232, which is next to the Nova Festival. It's a main route in the Gaza envelope. And people were shot in their cars, were murdered. And people tried to save one another through the in the in these cars.

It's unbelievable.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Yeah.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: So this became another heritage site. And we have the kibbutzim, where people were slaughtered in their houses and and fought for their lives and for their loved ones' lives.

There are two main forces that everyone can connect to, every human being. One force is the force of remember. We want to remember, we want to commemorate, we want to cherish the past. The second force is, you know, circle of life. Life must go on. So, if only if you feel these two forces together and you combine them,

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Yes.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: This is a way to build your resilience. And the heritage is a bridge. That's what we're trying to do.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Well, thank God with his help, you'll accomplish it.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: I hope.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: So Shira, tell us about what happened on October 7 for you and for your family.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: So I and my husband, we have seven kids. Our oldest one. Sometimes people introduce me as the mother of Aner since the 7th of October because people know his story, but I'm not only the mother of Aner, I'm the mother of seven kids. It's very important to remember and to keep in mind that our six are alive and one is alive in a different way.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Right.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: So what happened is my son, my oldest son, Aner, he was a soldier in the elite unit of Nahal. And he was off duty on that Saturday. So we had a meal all of us together, no guests, only us. Everyone was at home, all the kids. It was really special. It was a great meal.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Thank God.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: Yeah. And then he went to the party with his best friend, Hersh Goldberg Polin. And then they were bombing and shooting on the on the road. So they decided to enter the shelter. It was like a death trap because they were inside like 27 people hiding. They didn't have anything.

Only his bare hands and his spirit.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Oh, wow.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: He didn't have anything.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Oh my gosh.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: So he didn't succeed saving his own life, but he saved others. So he left us his legacy, his heritage. He was a musician, he was a painter, and he wrote more than 60 songs. He wrote, he composed, he sang, he recorded, and he was going to publish his album. And we already published six, but now we will publish the big album. And we will continue his heritage.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: The big album. Yes, his legacy.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: His legacy. And I'm very grateful for him that he left us so much to continue life as we said before. I just end with his poem, which I think is really amazing. In one of his songs he said, "I'm a man who believes in change. Never mind change, I'm a man who believes."

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Yeah.

Guest (Female) [Shira Shapira]: Okay. So I'm a man who believes. Never mind believing. It's enough to be a man. To be a mensch. That's what he said. That's what he did. That's what he gave his life for.

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From studying history, it's very clear that what starts with the Jews never ends only with the Jews. We must strongly stand against any anti-Semitic trends. For if not stopped, they'll cause harm to all of us, and we'll witness the downfall of our Judeo-Christian Western culture.

Today many people say there's no longer a need for a Jewish state, that Jews around the world no longer need a place of refuge. But anyone who has heard recent statistics about the worldwide rise in antisemitism would never make such a claim.

The reality is that Neo-Nazi groups and Nazi sympathizers are increasing around the world. Surveys show that over 1 billion people in the world harbor anti-Semitic attitudes. Close to 50% believe that Jews have too much power in the business world, and two thirds of the world's population has never heard of the Holocaust or believe the historic accounts of it are inaccurate.

Don't let yourself be manipulated by evil people with a wicked agenda. When the self-serving villains are in control, good people from all religions suffer. Muslims, Christians, and all people of conscience should stand proudly and show respect for a country that gives so much to the world in so many ways.

Do your part. Do your research and do what you can to make a difference. Because what happens in Israel does affect us all. This is not just a Jewish or just an Israeli problem. This is a problem for all humanity, for each and every one of us who believe in freedom and human rights. Learn more about what you can do at PJTN.org.

You just heard from Shira, a mother carrying unimaginable grief with extraordinary grace. But Aner's story belongs to his whole family. His father, Moshe Shapira, is an architect whose life's work has been building and preserving the heritage of Jerusalem, and who is now channeling that same instinct into preserving the legacy of his son.

Moshe comes from a family with deep roots in the founding of Israel. Aner carried that heritage in his blood. A classical pianist turned hip-hop artist, an elite IDF soldier who chose to serve not because he loved war, but because in his own words, he refused to let anyone else risk their life to protect him. In this conversation, Moshe shares who Aner truly was and the remarkable legacy his family is building in his name.

Guest (Male) [Moshe Shapira]: I was born in Israel. My grandparents came to to Israel from uh I think it was Palestine. They came from uh from Russia and from Germany. And they uh my grandfather that I'm named after him, Moshe Shapira, he was one of the people that established the state of Israel. He signed the Declaration of Independence.

I'm sharing with him the name, but Aner shares with him his birth date, which is in the Jewish calendar, it's Yuzaine Ba'ar. Me and Shira, we're both architects. I deal a lot of with preservation in Jerusalem and in Israel. And we, it's another privilege to be to to be one of the builders of Jerusalem.

It's in in Judaism, one of the names of God is the builder of Jerusalem. So make me makes me very pleased.

Aner is our older son. We have seven kids. Aner is the older one. And as an older kid, he was always a kind of a leader. He had always spoke for his values and stood for them. Since he was a small child, in school, if a principal, a teacher, or somebody bullied one of the students, so he would always stand, fearless.

For him, it was very very important. To stand wherever he saw somebody in in a bad position, in in stress, so he always stood for him. That's something that since he was a small child till the till the last battle of his life.

What happened on October 7th, two days before, Aner came home for for a short vacation from the army. And it was also the first meal that all the seven kids were gathering. And he was so pleased. He said, wow, the house is so nice. We all felt like a huge festival there on the roof that we had.

And but he said, you know, after the meal, I have to go with my friend. My friend Hersh Goldberg Polin, he was his best friend and it was his birthday. And he said, I have to go to the to the festival. There was a music festival. So they went to the festival. Around 6:30, they start seeing rockets on the sky and the

We are closing the festival. You should go out from the from this location. Aner's girlfriend called us. And she she asked us if we heard anything from him. We said no, we didn't hear from him. We we we tried to phone him but there was no answer.

And from that moment we started worried. Monday, we just we got a call from a from a young girl with a she was frightened in her voice. And she said, "I was with your son Aner in the Migonit." It's a small shelter. Thanks to him, I'm alive. He managed everything. There were already 23 people inside, and they were and they were four that came, I mean, three that came with Aner, so 27 people.

The space of this this shelter is something for eight people. Aner entered and he said, "Hi, my name is Aner Shapira. I'm a soldier in this in the Nahal elite unit. I must tell you, the Hamas had penetrated Israel, their terrorists inside the inside our land, but don't be afraid. We are next to a very big base. The army is on its way. I phoned them. Everything will be okay."

And one of the survivors told us that she shouted to him, "Aner, I'm so pleased you came. I'm now relaxed." So the first thing, he calmed them down. He went out, he saw the he saw the cars and he saw the terrorists heading fully armed with machine guns, with RPG. People were afraid. So Aner told them, "You know, I will stand at the entrance.