As Israelis and Jews around the world celebrated the Jewish new year, known as Rosh Hashana, this week, hostage families faced a dilemma: how to mark the holiday, a time of renewal and hope, while their loved ones are still held in Hamas captivity nearly one year after their kidnapping. That question was made even more difficult by the public attention’s shift to escalation in the north and by the accompanying limits on public gatherings in central Israel. Despite these uncertainties and challenges, some families of the 103 hostages still in Gaza chose to make the holiday part of a painful protest calling for their loved ones’ return.
Nearly one year after the kidnapping of the Bibas family—Shiri and Yarden and their children, 9-month old Kfir and 4-year-old Ariel—relatives of the family marked Rosh Hashana by setting up a holiday table outside the family’s destroyed house on Kibbutz Nir Oz. Yarden’s father, Eli Bibas, and Shiri’s cousin, Yifat Zailer, sat at the holiday table among six empty chairs. Those empty chairs represented the four hostages as well as Shiri’s parents, Margit and Yossi Silverman, who were killed on October 7.
Sixty miles north of Kibbutz Nir Oz, other hostage families marked the Jewish new year by protesting outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house in Caesarea. The protest was organized by a group of families that hold a weekly rally outside the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, including Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is held hostage. “A new year cannot begin until the hostages return, and only then can time get back on course,” the families wrote.
The protest featured an installation of coffins on which the families had written, “We are all victims of the neglect. Those who were neglected on October 7 have been neglected every day since, on and on.” The families also spelled out the Hebrew word for “hope” in flames.
Brig. Gen. Amal Asad, a member of Israel’s Druze community, also took part in the event, as did the Israeli actress and writer Shira Geffen.
Other families marked the holiday at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, the makeshift site of protest for the return of hostages. “A happy new year this is not,” Natalie Ben Ami, whose father Ohad is still held hostage, told Israel’s public broadcaster Kan. “Last year wasn’t a happy one either. There’s nothing you can do about it, as long as they’re there it won’t be a happy year. We’re just waiting for them to come back already, so that we can really turn this year into a happy one.”
This article was translated from Hebrew by Leah Schwartz.
