Editor’s Note: After the column was written, Hamas returned the body of Shiri Bibas, the mother of Kfir and Ariel.
By Heidi Gantwerk
SAN DIEGO — After 503 days, the news we dreaded – the news we knew on some level was coming – finally arrived last week. And all our hearts, which have been broken over and over for the past 16 months, broke open once again.
Hope is a precious, delicate thing. We held onto it in November 2023, when most of the children being held hostage in Gaza were released. Most, but not all. Not the youngest hostages, Kfir and Ariel Bibas, or their young mother, Shiri. Over the past several weeks, as Hamas has continued to psychologically terrorize the hostage families, the nation of Israel and our entire global Jewish family held its collective breath, hoping that with each list of hostages to be released alive, we would finally see the names of those three precious red-headed souls.
Instead, in a “ceremony” that can only be described as grotesque, Hamas displayed locked coffins containing the remains of Kfir, Ariel, and 84-year-old Oded Lifshitz – along with who we believed to be Shiri. In that moment, that delicate hope shattered. And then it shattered again when the IDF identified Oded, along with Kfir and Ariel – both of whom forensic evidence found had been “brutally murdered” more than a year ago – but announced that the fourth body was not Shiri at all. Another appalling mind-game adding to the unfathomable pain of this family.
Members of Hamas brought their own children to see and to celebrate this act of evil, holding their toddlers on their shoulders like they were going to a festive parade. Israelis silently lined highways and hostage square, following the progress of the vehicles carrying the remains of these innocents, whose faces have become etched in the collective psyche of the Jewish people. The red-headed Bibas children sitting with their parents, all dressed in their Batman pajamas. The face of their young mother, whose terror as she grips her children tightly in video footage from October 7 haunts our dreams.
As The Times of Israel put it, “Three pure souls in a sea of tragedy, three lives among so many torn viciously from normalcy, whose fate has shaken us all.” And alongside these youngest hostages was one of the oldest – a great-grandfather, a founder of Kibbutz Nir Oz, and a lifelong peace activist who would regularly transport patients from Gaza to receive medical care in hospitals across Israel.
Across social media, Jews are posting a simple black square with a broken orange heart. In another sign that we truly are walking in a different world than many of our neighbors and colleagues, I have seen many people commenting on these posts, “Oh no, who died?” How must it feel today to live in a world where you don’t see those faces when you close your eyes? Where you haven’t been refreshing your feed, hoping and dreading at the same time? I see the all too personal pain and grief in the eyes of the many members of our staff who have young children, and I ache for them. I walk by family photos of my own children when they were the same age decades ago, and I feel that grief and rage as a raw physical presence.
A part of me wishes I could be oblivious to this pain, could be so immersed in other things that I could be the one asking, “Who died?” At the same time, in this moment I feel an even more powerful connection to our global Jewish family, and that is what sustains me. I take solace in the words of my rabbis and my teachers. I read and reread the posts and texts and e-mails from friends in Israel and reach out to let them know we are still here, we care.
The melody and the words for the prayer Esah Enai keep running through my head: “I lift my eyes to the mountains – where will my help come from?” Mine comes from all of you, from being part of something so much bigger than myself, from this gift of “peoplehood” that comes with its challenges for sure but has blessed and continues to bless my life.
We will continue to advocate, in every way we can, for the release of the remaining hostages. But we know there will be more difficult days ahead – more hostages coming home for burial rather than into the loving arms of their families. In the face of this evil, we must speak up and speak out wherever and whenever we can. There is no world in which the kidnapping, torture, and murder of children and the elderly can be viewed as anything other than pure evil by any person of conscience.
We must also all continue to hold our children and one another close, drawing upon what Judaism has given us: our strength, our rituals, our traditions, and our values. That is what will sustain us.
May Kfir, Ariel, and Oded’s memories be a blessing, and all the remaining hostages be returned home.
Wishing you and your loved ones a Shabbat of meaning, in the company of those you love.
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Heidi Gantwerk is President & CEO of the Jewish Federation of San Diego