Tami Cohen Shapira, Mother of the late Ziv Pepe Shapira's Beef Bourekas Recipe

“A Place at the Table” is a commemorative project that documents the favorite dishes of those lost on October 7 with the help of their families. 

Tami Cohen Shapira has returned to cooking in her kitchen on Kibbutz Nir Am near the Gaza border, but nothing feels the same. In a large skillet, she sears the beef for bourekas, and the smell of it spreads throughout the house, reaching her late son Ziv’s dog, Lupi, who barks nonstop.

She used to make beef bourekas often — for Friday night or in the middle of the week. “Everyone loves beef bourekas,” she says, and Ziv did too. “Sometimes he’d devour an entire log,” she recalls.

Ziv loved it when she cooked for him, but he was also a cook in his own right, Tami says. He discovered cooking when he moved into his own apartment on the kibbutz. He liked trying new recipes like ones for stuffed grape or cabbage leaves, and curries.

Ziv was deeply curious and loved trying new things in life. “He tried everything because he knew we were always there for him. I made sure to tell him that no matter what, I’d be there for him. Except once — just once — I couldn’t be there for him, on October 7, 2023.” The feeling that she couldn’t be there for him in his final moments won’t let her go.

On the eve of Simchat Torah, October 6, the Cohen-Shapira family spent the holiday together at their home in Nir Am. A few hours earlier, Ziv had asked his mother what she planned to cook for the festive meal. When she told him it would be goulash, he wasn’t thrilled, she recalls with a smile. “He told me my goulash was just okay.” He sent her his own recipe, and she made the Hungarian beef stew according to it, which turned out especially good, she remembers. “Ziv licked his fingers, and I’m glad I at least made him smile and enjoy what, in hindsight, was his last meal. His final feast.”

After they finished eating, Ziv left for the Nova music festival, leaving Lupi with his parents. The next morning, they woke to the sound of sirens. Their first call was to Ziv, who reported that he and his friends were retreating and starting to head home. About an hour later, she messaged him that terrorists had infiltrated the kibbutz, but he didn’t tell her that the area he was in was also crawling with them.

“I thought the fighting was happening here, at our kibbutz. I didn’t know the attack was happening there, too. We had no electricity all morning. Only when the power and internet came back did we begin to understand what was happening outside the kibbutz,” she recalls.

The last time they heard from him was at 8:30 a.m. He continued messaging with his friends until 8:50, then silence. That’s when she believes he was killed.

For three days, they searched for him in hospitals and police stations, trying to gather any piece of information. When they received the call from the police at 2 a.m., while staying at an evacuees’ hotel in Tel Aviv, she already knew there would be no happy ending.

Ziv was born in 1997 in Eilat to Tamar Shapira and Yehiel Sabag. Later, he moved with his mother to Kibbutz Nir Am after Tamar married Patrick Cohen, who raised him as his own. Ziv got the nickname ‘Pepe’ from his friends, and later made sure to add it to his ID card alongside his mother’s surname.

Ziv had five siblings: Aviel and Mor Sabag, Yehiel’s children, and Tal, Gil, and Dan Cohen, Tamar and Patrick’s children. Tami explains that his bond with his younger brothers grew stronger only after he moved out to his own apartment on the kibbutz. Until then, he was busy with friends and active in the HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed youth movement, even continuing as a group leader during his pre-army service year. But from the moment he moved into his own place, his younger brothers started coming over more often to hang out and help take care of Lupi, Tami recalls.

Everyone loved coming to Ziv’s apartment, she adds. Every corner of his small apartment and yard was used to host friends: he planted roses, installed a jacuzzi, and added a patio heater in winter, all to make sure everyone had a good time. They would play Settlers of Catan and talk late into the night over beer.

As a child, he was a big troublemaker and prankster, she says, smiling. “He was a classic rebel because he knew we’d always be there to support him when needed.” Even when she found out he was smoking in 11th grade, she didn’t get angry, she just told him she knew. Since then, he knew he could tell her anything and could always trust her. As he grew up, he discovered his artistic soul. He took up jewelry making as a hobby and welding as a profession. If he found a scrap of wire in the yard, he would immediately turn it into a flower decoration for the garden, his mother recalls.

When he wasn’t working with his hands, Ziv immersed himself in music. On the wall of his apartment at the kibbutz hangs the only song he ever managed to write, and its lyrics perfectly capture the feeling he left behind:

“A tiny spark of longing

shines like a distant planet

but as you draw near,

it’s just a small, delicate snowflake

melting in your hands as if it was never there

and all that’s left behind

is only the feeling it gave…”

Did you prepare the dish? Share a photo of it and tag it #A_Place_at_the_Table  to honor the memory of the late Ziv Pepe Shapira