In memory of Jake Marlowe
Murdered by monsters on 7 October at the Nova festival
It is 4am and I cannot sleep.
Just after 4am UK time 9 months ago Michael and Lisa Marlowe got a call from their son Jake who was living in Israel. Jake was working security at the Nova music festival. He said there were paragliders. Commotion. Noise. He said he loved them very much. He had to go but he’d call later.
That call never came.
Michael told this story to us at a service dedicated to Jake tonight at our memorial for the victims of 7/10. It’s Jake’s birthday tomorrow. He would have been 27 years old. Michael told us of the call that never came. Of his frantic scramble to get a flight to Israel. Of the complete lack of support from the British government. Michael took us through each painful step of the process that led to him ending up identifying his beloved son’s body by the tattoos on his calves.
“I asked for Jake’s head and face to be uncovered so I could kiss him goodbye. To tell him we loved him. We would love him forever more. What I saw will be ever ingrained in the deepest darkest part of my soul. A vision I still see when I close my eyes and I will take that vision with me to my grave.”
The terrorists shot Jake nine times. His body had lain out in the desert for four days before being found. His mother Lisa told me she became obsessed with her son’s last moments. That she needed to chart them because otherwise he was here and then gone. That was impossible to accept. A cliff edge of unreality. I recalled a similar feeling though of course never approaching the unfathomable loss of a child. I dived into the most gruesome footage of 7/10 to understand the sequence of events that led to my husband Adam’s family’s murder and kidnap.
Hamas had broadcast their torture of Adam’s family live to Facebook. There was an unholy abundance of footage. This was not the case for Jake. Each grief is different. Every murder its own dark universe. Jake saved people before being murdered. That’s who he was. A simple truth of those last moments. Perhaps a comfort if there’s any to be found but probably not yet. Not in this sharp time of pain. There is Jake’s death. And then there is his life.
Jake was a talented musician. His chosen passion was hardcore, a subgenre of metal. His father proudly described how Jake was invited to join the successful band Desolated and tour all over the world playing to audiences of thousands. He became known as the “Rifflord”. We asked lead singer of the band Disturbed David Draiman if he could send a message for the service and he graciously recorded a video to Jake’s parents.
Michael recounted the story of how his son came to make Aliyah. The return to Israel was sparked in 2021 when Jake saw a video online of pro-Palestinian activists driving through a Jewish area of London and shouting “F**k the Jews. Rape their daughters.” It disturbed him. Made him feel unsafe. I remember that video. I shared it shocked and scared. That those men were arrested but the charges were dropped compounded the fear. When the State can no longer defend Jews it is not surprising that they seek protection elsewhere. Jake went to Israel. Yet those who called for rape and murder of Jews on the streets of London eventually got their sick wish.
Those kind of men still plague us. The day before Jake’s parents arrived to our memorial the pro-Palestinian march in London was swarming with them. One dressed as Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida held a placard saying “Martyrs do not die. Their blood blooms.” Below was the inverted red triangle which is coded support for Hamas. Originating in Hamas propaganda videos, the triangle is the graphic used to mimic targeting of Israeli forces before an attack. Hamas are a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK so these codes are deployed to circumvent the law.
Support for the antisemitic terrorists has intensified after the single biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. There are 500 open counter terror cases post-7/10 and 2500 public referrals. The blood of terror fans is up and shows no sign of abating. Unsurprisingly Jews making aliyah from the UK has almost doubled. Britain is losing its Jews and keeping its Hamas fans. An intolerable injustice.
After the service for Jake was over we walked to the beach. He loved the sea. There we tied yellow ribbons for the hostages and we wrote messages on stones.
“Rest peacefully”
“Jake lion of Israel”
“You are us. We are you.”
Someone will take those stones to Israel. Place them at another memorial. The one at the Nova site where 360 innocents were slaughtered including Jake. The stones will connect us. Small, tough stones shaped by time and pressure. Pushed down into the earth. Compressed. Made. Eroded. Hardened. Each stone, each message unique. Yet united. For Jake and each of the murdered. For all those taken and not returned. For all of us left and waiting.
“You are us. We are you.”