In many ways, it looked like any other seder, the festive meal held for the Jewish holiday of Passover. Friends and family sat around a long table strewn with flowers and bottles of grape juice, reading from booklets and discussing the story of liberation from bondage. So what made this Passover seder different from all other Passover seders? It took place at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where 62 community members were killed and 19 taken hostage on October 7 of last year—and the survivors and freed hostages around the table dedicated the event to Gali and Ziv Berman, the two remaining hostages from the kibbutz still held in Gaza.
“I came because we have no excuses. We live in a paradise, while they are in hell. Gali and Ziv are not just a news story—they are my home, my family. They would have done the same for me,” Ido Shamriz, whose brother Alon Shamriz was kidnapped from Kfar Aza and killed in Gaza by Israeli fire, said at the seder.
Shamriz said that the death of his brother made clear the importance of fighting for the lives of Gali and Ziv and the other hostages still in Gaza. Gali and Ziv, 27-year-old twins, are among the 24 living hostages thought to remain, alongside 35 bodies.
Doron Steinbrecher, a kibbutz resident who was taken hostage and released in January 2025, commented on the symbolism of holding the seder in her old neighborhood, where so many were kidnapped.
“I stand before you, looking at this joyful, living neighborhood that until October 6 was my home. On the morning of October 7, I woke to gunfire—and now, these are the ruins of my home,” she said. “I was fortunate to return and begin my recovery, but I can’t really begin. The gate across the way is the opening to hell. Gali and Zivi are still there. They deserve freedom.”
Emily Damari, who was released alongside Steinbrecher, also described the events of October 7, 2023.
“Hate-driven terrorists broke into my apartment. Gali and I were hiding in a room when they burst in and shot me in the arm. They pointed their weapons at Gali, and I screamed with all my strength for them to stop and leave him. That’s how we were kidnapped to Gaza, together with Ziv, in a second car—in broad daylight, on a quiet holiday morning. Since then, time has stood still,” she recounted. “Every year, the people of Israel say at Passover: ‘Next year in freedom.’ This year, those words must have real meaning. Gali, Ziv, and 57 of our brothers and sisters are still suffering every single day, every hour, in that hell called Gaza—in Hamas’s tunnels of darkness and fear. We must not give up for a moment. We must do everything we can for them.”
Inbal Goldstein, whose brother Nadav Goldstein and his family were attacked by Hamas on October 7, 2023, also spoke. Nadav was killed alongside his 20-year-old daughter Yam Goldstein-Almog; his wife and three younger children, aged 9 to 17, were taken hostage and were released in November 2023.
“The ground is soaked with the blood of 64 Kfar Aza residents, including my brother and his daughter,” Inbar said. “A plague of the firstborn—and afterward, a long desert journey. Our personal struggle lasted 51 eternal days. We were lucky to close our chapter. Since they returned, we’ve embraced them—but captivity is like a cloud. It sits with us at every family meal. It insists on being part of us.”
She went on to say that closure cannot be a privilege allowed only to those whose loved ones have returned. “All of us together as a people must mourn and rebuild what was destroyed. In every generation, a person must see themselves as if they survived October 7—and the generation of October 7 leaves no one behind,” she said.
