Yoni Diller at Drake Diner
11/5/2025
Yoni Diller is an American Italian Israeli who escaped from Hamas terrorists at the Nova Festival Oct. 7, 2023. Iowans Supporting Israel brought him to Des Moines in October. We asked him to lunch and met at Drake Diner, the site of its own senseless massacre in 1992.
Our lunch happened on the very day that Israeli hostages from Nova were finally released. Over pancakes, muffins and coffee, we talked about life-changing moments, serendipity and logotherapy.
Being an American Italian Israeli begs a back story. What is Yoni’s?
“I was born in Tel Aviv. My father is a California cowboy, and my mother is Roman. They met over the telephone in Israel. My father was calling the boss of a Duty Free shop, and mom answered. He was fascinated by her accent and offered her cappuccino. I happened later.”
How did Yoni happen to be at Nova?
“I was excited to be going with my girlfriend. Nova was not just a concert; it was a celebration of culture and love — part Woodstock and part Burning Man. There were over 20 nationalities there dancing in the desert, 15 miles from Gaza. The concert began at midnight. My parents told me not to go, that I should grow up, festivals were a waste of time. I told my father to mind his own business.”
When did Yoni know he was trapped in hell?
“That wasn’t so clear. We arrived at 4 a.m., and the terrorists attacked at dawn. First, we saw a missile, then more of them. But, that was not unusual. Hamas had been lobbing missiles at Israel for years. Most people just kept on dancing. The disk jockey didn’t even hear the first alarm siren.
“Then, there were hundreds of missiles. A woman who had left the festival early came driving toward us. We could see that her car was filled with bullet holes. She was bleeding to death from a bullet in her knee, yet she turned her car around from safety and came back to warn the rest of us. We tried to help her. Her name was Shani Gabay, and I will never forget her.
“I knew then that the missiles, and later the fire of automatic rifles, were for real. I tried to tell others to put their heads down. Only those who did so survived. But some people were drunk. Others were high on hallucinogenic drugs. One bullet flew by my head so close I could feel it. People were being slaughtered by monsters. They were shooting up the restrooms and ambulances full of people and, to be sure they were dead, they would also lob in hand grenades. I heard a guy answer his phone. It was his sister, worried about him. I heard him say ‘This is not a good time. I’ll call you back.’ It was time to flee.”
How did he escape?
“I had spent three years serving in special forces in the army, but, at that moment, I had learned nothing that helped. We ran toward an empty field away from the gunfire. Because I am a geography nerd, I checked my phone for my co-ordinates and for the nearest town in the opposite direction of the gunfire. It was a small town named Papish, 17 miles across the desert. We determined to walk straight there even without water.
“The desert was hot, and we became dehydrated. Twice I felt like feinting, but I knew that feinting meant death. In five hours, we finally made it to Papish, knocked on a door and people came running to help us. They knew far more than we did about what was happening.
“The next day, I returned to Tel Aviv. I told my parents I had been to Nova, and my mother cursed me in Italian. ‘How could you be so stupid?’ ”
How did his life change like after that?
“At first, I was just angry. Two days after the massacre, I tried to rejoin my special forces unit. When I told my commander that I had been at Nova, he told me they were full. He didn’t want to take a chance that I was unhinged by my experience. I was frustrated. I didn’t know what I could do. That is when I discovered the books of Viktor Frankl. That was life changing.”
Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, developed logotherapy, the third school of Vienna psychotherapy after Freud’s and Adler’s. Freud thought humans were motivated by the urge for pleasure; Adler by the urge for power. Frankl believed it was the urge for meaning in life. How did Yoni find direction in his search for meaning?
“About that time, Italian TV asked to interview me. It felt good to tell my story, and especially Shani Gabay’s. Then the BBC and American TV followed. I speak three languages and a bit of Spanish. Next, I was invited to come to the U.S. Congress to speak. After that, I spoke on college campuses — Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Penn. That was an awakening. Those places were filled with Antifa protesters. Some claimed that Nova never happened. One Pakistani protestor at Princeton told me Oct. 7 was justified, that it was morally correct to kill Jews because they were conducting a genocide. I had learned from Frankl to use Socratic method rather than anger to deal with him.
“Before speaking on those campuses, my dream was to get a doctorate in business at such Ivy League schools, or at Wharton. That dream ended then and there. Today, the hostages are finally home. That changes everything again.”
And how does Yoni now plan to pursue his quest for meaning?
“I am counseling entrepreneurs, mental coaching, mostly geared at real estate developers. I still feel it is important, even patriotic, to tell my story and especially Shani’s. It is getting easier to speak without breaking down. I never use notes because the story needs to be fresh each time it’s told.”
The Nova campground is now a shrine, similar to Gettysburg and the World Trade Towers. How does Yoni feel about that?
“It’s essential to never forget. Now I believe the terrorists were surprised by the festival. It was a distraction for them — easy targets for rape and murder. Probably that kept them from deeper invasions of kibbutzim.”
If the massacre that would change the world was an accident, God must appreciate absurdity. ♦
