In the new musical Heroines! Songs & Soliloquies for the Soul, the 10-woman cast on the stage harmonizes in a song titled “How Does One Remember?” 

Two years after the Oct. 7 massacre, how are we all to remember the early days of the war, the sights and sounds, the fears and determination? 

I’m still wearing mnemonic yellow nail polish on my pinkies and hostage ribbons painted on my ring fingers, waiting for the murdered hostages to be returned. When they’re all back, I’ll switch to orange because with all the people and events that have crowded our memories, I don’t want to forget Shiri Bibas and her red-headed children.te 

The musical Heroines, produced by the 24-year-old Raise Your Spirits Theatre group of Gush Etzion, brings back those memories, highlighting the courage and resilience of the women of Israel facing terror, fighting in combat units, facing the death of loved ones, and stepping forward to help others. Even though several of the stories presented in Heroines were familiar to me, I was grateful for the reminder. 

There is so much to remember in Operation Swords of Iron (recently name-changed to “The War of Revival”), that women’s bravery and fortitude are apt to be forgotten. The valiant, bold IDF soldiers are mostly men. They rushed to defend Israel, fought the enemy on every front, and endangered themselves to rescue comrades. Nearly a thousand men gave their lives; more than 20,000 are war-wounded. These soldiers saved Israel and the Jewish people. They can never receive enough appreciation and gratitude. 

Playwrights/librettists Toby Klein Greenwald and Shayna Levine-Hefetz from Gush Etzion use a combination of monologue and song to honor the women of Israel. The nearly two-hour, all-women performance premiered in Modi’in last week to, as always, a women-only audience. Among the performers are women who restrict themselves from singing before men because of their religious beliefs. Elisheva Savir is the music director, and Tammy Rubin co-produces the show with Klein Greenwald. 

Full disclosure. One of the stories is based on a column I wrote in The Jerusalem Post about a mikveh attendant whose bus was hit by a missile, and she saved her fellow passengers but was wounded herself. I met her on her way to recovery in the rehabilitation center at Hadassah-University Medical Center, on Jerusalem’s Mount Scopus. Another monologue is the story of my Atlanta-born cousin Rose Lubin, 21, who helped protect Kibbutz Sa’ad and then was murdered serving as a Border Police officer in the Old City of Jerusalem. 

I admit, also, that I am a longtime fan and admirer of the genre of women’s musical theater created by Klein Greenwald and her neighbors during the Second Intifada, when buses were blowing up in Jerusalem. 

THE SHOW opens with the story of Adi Vital-Kaploun, who was murdered protecting her children on Kibbutz Holit. There’s a monologue about the heralded, first-in-history, all-female tank crew. The audience also meets the women of the military burial society who honored the murdered female soldiers as they prepared them for burial. 

Sixteen stories are fully showcased, plus others in snapshots. As Klein Greenwald says, there could be hundreds, maybe thousands, of stories of courageous intrepid women. The selected stories represent the vast collection of stories that could and should be told. A number of the heroines are well known, such as Rachel Edri of Ofakim, who stalled terrorists with her home-baked cookies; Shifra Buchris, a mother of 10 and commander in the Border Police; and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin. It was a video of Goldberg-Polin speaking so eloquently that inspired Levine-Hefetz to propose the show to Klein Greenwald. 

Among the heroines are also volunteers – those who cooked and drove to bases, and taught yoga. Klein Greenwald, who hails from Cleveland, Ohio, reads the line of a volunteer who recalls finding a 1950s Cleveland Browns sweatshirt while sorting clothing for evacuees. It’s details like this that make the stories personal and powerful. The spotlighted women aren’t spartans or paragons. They reveal their imperfections and fears, anguish and pain. 

And somehow there’s also humor. For instance, the song that follows the monologue about the evacuees is “It Takes a Woman to Make an Ark a Home.” 

In the first performance, amid the shattering story of a family bereaved over three generations, one of the performers misspoke and described a Chabad woman as operating a tattoo parlor in Tel Aviv! The devout woman actually runs a tattoo-removal clinic. Her fellow actress corrected her, and the audience enjoyed the blip so much it might remain in future shows. 

The women actors (are we back to calling them actresses?) in pink, purple, and plum maxi dresses sit on tall stools. The stories are told from different points of view. You might meet the heroine, her mother, her sister, or even her grandmother. The performers are a mix of ages, from maidens to grandmothers. 

Although it’s impossible to be comprehensive in bringing forth the wide spectrum of heroism, the playwrights have done a good job of it, by including Jewish women, Druze women, and Bedouin women, those who took up arms and those who provided support to family, friends, and strangers. 

The final song describes the biblical Miriam leading the women across the Reed Sea. As we all recall, they didn’t forget to pack their tambourines because they knew there would be cause to rejoice. 

I have seen most of this ensemble’s shows and have often brought my then-young daughters or granddaughters. This show is too hard for younger children who have had their own war experience with which to cope. The ensemble’s website recommends it from age 16 and up. 

Do bring your tissues if you’re going to the show, and you should. The stories may make you cry, but they’ll also infuse you with hope, pride, and inspiration. 

You won’t forget them.