Israeli couple Leron and Zoli Mor have identical tattoos on their arms, depicting a procession of eight elephants, their tails and trunks entwined.
The first two are the parents followed by six small calves. The last three are even smaller than the rest and are depicted in fresh ink because they were added later.
The eight elephants represent the peacock family. Leron and Jolie Mor have three children of their own and have adopted three others whose parents – one of them Leron’s sister – were killed in an attack by Hamas gunmen in Israel on October 7 last year.
“There were five of them,” said Leron Mor, pointing to the tattoo on his arm in the family’s new home in the northern Israeli village of Bnei Dror. “And three more people joined them.”
One of the three adopted, Avigail Idan, was one of more than 250 people taken hostage during the attack led by the Palestinian militant group. He was released last November, although about 100 others are still imprisoned as the Israel-Hamas war continues over the attack.
She was three years old at the time of the attack, in which her parents were among the 1,200 people killed. Her older siblings, Michael and Amalia, hid in a cupboard in their home in the kibbutz, with their mother lying lifeless on the floor nearby.
Morse was also living in a kibbutz in southern Israel at the time and was rescued from his home the day after the attack. They now live in Beni Dror, a farming village near the remote Mediterranean coast.
“Communication is very open here at home. We talk about their parents. We don’t forget about them even for a moment,” Leron Mor said. “We look at pictures together. And they are present in our lives.”
Avigail also has US citizenship, and she and the family met US President Joe Biden at the White House in April.
“He was an extremely kind, warm and caring person,” Leron Mor said. “We talked to them about those people, their friends who are still there and all the hostages. We told them to do everything they can to get them out because that’s the only important thing right now. Nothing is more important than that.” Not there.”
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