Kati Zohar, mother of the late Bar Zohar 's Maple Pecan Cookies 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.  

When the scent of maple pecan cookies wafted through the Zohar family home in Moshav Kfar Warburg, Bar, the youngest daughter, would wait eagerly so she could sneak them all into her room. If she was feeling generous, she might have shared some of the cookies — but in limited quantities, her mother Kati recalls laughing. Everyone knew these were Bar’s cookies. Eventually, Kati began preparing a double batch in advance — one for Bar and another for the rest of the family, Kati shares, as she grinds the pecans with the softened butter for the cookie dough. 

This is the first time since Bar was murdered on October 7 that Kati is making the cookies. She says: “Shani, my eldest daughter, asked me to make them, but I refused. I told her I didn’t have the mental strength — she understood and didn’t ask again. When we discussed what to prepare today, we considered fish, meatballs, and beef bourekas. After a few days, I finally said, ‘I’ll make the cookies.’ [Shani] was silent for a moment and then asked, ‘Do you think you can make them?’ I was silent too; I had no answer.”

On October 7, Bar drove to the Nova music festival in her mother’s car with four friends she met on a trip to South America. The family had a strict rule, Kati says: after a party, no one drives. Bar’s friends, who had a good relationship with her parents, knew this as well. They called Kati and her husband Meir at the end of every outing, and the parents would come to pick them up. This time was no different. The night before, Bar received the festival’s location and informed her parents. Kati, who works at the Be’eri Printing Press and knows the area well, found comfort in the fact that the pickup point for her daughter and her friends was not far from their home.

At 1:30 a.m., they arrived at the party, and by 6:30 a.m., the sirens began to sound. Bar called her parents to ask them to come pick them up, but they were in the safe room, as the sirens blared non-stop throughout the country. She called again and again, and her father urged her, no matter what condition she was in, to get into the car and start driving away. Bar explained that she wasn’t in any condition to drive. Frustrated that her parents hadn’t kept their promise to come, she hung up. This was the last phone call they would have.

From the brief texts that followed, Kati learned that Bar let a friend drive. Near Be’eri, a police checkpoint stopped them and sent them back to the party area, unaware they were sending them into danger. Bar and her friends managed to drive only a few hundred meters when two vans of terrorists appeared in front of them, firing in all directions. Bar was shot in the thigh. Matan Zanti, one of her friends sitting in the back seat who was protecting his partner, was struck by two bullets in the chest. At the same time, another vehicle, which the terrorists had shot at, lost control and crashed into them, sending their vehicle tumbling into a ditch on the side of the road.

According to the accounts of the surviving friends, within minutes, Bar regained consciousness. She got out of the vehicle, injured, and jumped into an abandoned car whose driver had fled the scene. She called her friends to follow her. When she realized they couldn’t get Matan out of the vehicle and had to leave him behind, she was furious but understood that going back was no longer an option. She drove away furiously. 

All this time, Kati and Meir tried to call Bar and her friends, but Bar had made them promise not to answer — she realized the area was infested with terrorists and feared that her parents would come to rescue them and put themselves in danger. She continued to drive while losing blood, but as her consciousness began to fade and the vehicle started to zigzag, she was forced to stop. Another vehicle arrived and rescued the three friends who were with her, but Bar remained unconscious in the car.

Kati says that at this point, the late Ido Edri and the late Itai Bausi — who she refers to as “angels” — arrived, pulled Bar from the vehicle, and applied a tourniquet, helping her regain consciousness. Bar murmured that she needed to get to the police to warn them. When they did, she managed to muster the last of her strength to explain that they were directing people toward the terrorists.  At that moment, the police changed their directive and ordered everyone who arrived to flee for their lives. Unfortunately, Bar’s condition had worsened, and she was no longer able to flee.

In her final moments, Bar saved not only her three friends but also hundreds of others. “She is recognized as a hero by the police, but that doesn’t comfort me,” Kati says. “I want her here with me. I miss her hugs, the feel of her soft, warm skin. I miss her voice and the moments of going into her room to wake her up.”

Bar was born in the spring of 2000, becoming a little sister to Shani and Mor. A loving child, she  always ready to give up everything to help others. When she was 8, her parents enrolled her in a gifted program at Bar-Ilan University’s branch in Yavne where she studied math and law. When she was nine, she firmly announced that she wasn’t ready to give up her friends and asked to stop her studies so she could spend more time with them.

Bar excelled during military service as well, translating classified documents for the commander of her special unit as well as a speech for the Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff. With his approval, she even made changes to parts of the speech. As a token of gratitude, the commander ensured that she received a medal for her work from the Chairman himself.

“The world has lost a brilliant mind and a generous heart — someone who gave her all and brought people together. Our task now is to commemorate her and show the world what was lost in her passing,” says Kati.

During the Shiva, they discovered notebooks filled with hundreds of poems written by Bar. In some of them, Kati says, they found lines that seemed to predict the last hours of her life and the journey she endured on that cursed day while trying to save herself and her friends. They reached out to a pair of musicians who began composing music for some of the poems. The first single, “Puzzle,” is already out, and two more — “Hourglass” and “Late Night Hours” — are set to be released soon. In the future, Kati says, a collection of Bar’s poems will also be published.

“It’s hard for me to believe I’m making the cookies she loved most, and Bar isn’t here to steal them, and say, ‘Mom, next time add a little more maple…,’” she says as she places the cookie tray in the oven. “I want her to be here.”

Did you make this  recipe? Share a photo of it and tag it #A_Place_at_the_Table  to honor the memory of the late Bar Zohar.