Right now the sun is out and I can hear birds singing. I’ve been thinking about what to say to you for a couple weeks. Shortly after Oct. 7th a friend gave me a bracelet with the name and age of one of the hostages – Itzhak Elgarat. I looked him up online. He had no digital footprint. As the months went by I continued to search for any news of him – nothing. Then a couple months ago a poster came out of all the hostages remaining in captivity and he was on it! I posted: Itzhak is alive! But I was to learn that these photos included the dead. Yesterday his body was returned to his family in Israel. We also learned that both the Bibas boys and their mother were murdered “by hand” and their bodies desecrated to look like they had died in a bombing. I thought, “How do you strangle a 10 month old baby?” I can’t understand.
So we weep or sit stunned.
In America we are individualists. Everything that happens, happens to ME. If I DIE, the world dies. In Israel – and in Jewish community – Jews are a collective. The idea of resilience carries us ALL forward as a people. It helps me so much to be only a tiny part of something much bigger that will continue eternally.
A few articles that you may want to know about:
Yarden Bibas says goodbye to his wife and sons
Deaths of Shiri and her sons
Itzhak Elgarat
Emily Damari shows her strength
How October 7 changed American Jews
Medical Clowns
Mosab Hassan Yousef, Son of Hamas, speaks on terrorism