By Leah Garber
For 73 hostages still trapped in Gaza’s darkness, time has lost its meaning. Yesterday mirrors today, which will echo into tomorrow. Yet this 500th day bears a weight that demands to be felt, crying out the pain of victims, the ache of bereavement, and the silence that still shrouds southern Israel.
Day 500 is a continuation of that one long day whose events have so darkened our skies, where the sun has yet to rise. Today is marked with protests across the country, rallies supporting the hostages’ families, with cries to bring them all home, now.
We live from Shabbat to Shabbat, each week bringing both joy and heartbreak. Who will return? Whose family will be made whole? Whose eyes will still search the horizon for their loved ones?
For a month now, courageous returning survivors share the story of their terrible captivity—abuse, starvation, isolation, humiliation, medical neglect, psychological terror. Their eyes reveal what can’t be said, horrors that have no words.
With the painful sights, terms from another era surfaced—including Muselmänner, those harsh images from the Holocaust of life fragments trudging on weak legs with hollow faces and extreme emaciation. Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi, and Or Levy returned from hell emaciated and pale. The State of Israel was established as a sovereign Jewish home so that such horrors would never happen again, and yet Hamas’s monstrous arms have robbed us of our ability to protect our people, to ensure our children’s safety.
Eli and Or came home only to discover that the merciful embrace they yearned for was missing. Their homecoming brought new pain: Eli learned his wife and two daughters had been murdered on October 7, and his brother, who had been kidnapped with him, was murdered in Gaza. Or learned that his wife, the mother of three-year-old Almog, had been lost on that terrible day. Almog’s teddy bear became a special ambassador in the family’s worldwide journey to bring Or back. At every meeting, little Almog’s teddy told the story of tragedy—suffered by Almog, the rest of the children waiting for their parents to return from Gaza, and the families whose murdered children will never play again.
For Ohad Ben Ami, who returned thin and weak, a more complete embrace awaited. Ohad was kidnapped with his wife, Raz, from their home in Kibbutz Be’eri, and each was held separately in Gaza. Raz was held in inhumane conditions and her health deteriorated without the medication she needed due to illness. She was released after 57 days and returned home to their three daughters. Together, they moved mountains to generate global pressure for Hamas to release their father and tell his story.
As part of their cross-continental journey, the family visited the Jewish community in Baltimore, where they were hosted by the JCC in partnership with Run 4 Israel. During an incredibly meaningful and emotional evening at the JCC, Raz shared her story of captivity while her daughters spoke about their Abba, including Ohad’s personality and how much they missed him.
When Ohad was released 10 days ago and it became clear how severely he and fellow hostages had been mistreated, those who attended the Baltimore JCC event were particularly heartbroken. Having met and spent time with his wife and daughters, they had a personal connection to Ohad. This wasn’t just another tragic hostage story; this was family and Baltimore’s JCC community shared in their pain. As Sara Shalva, the JCC’s chief arts officer, told me: “Seeing Ohad paraded across the stage [Hamas’s staged horrific ceremony] so skinny and malnourished, looking like a liberated Holocaust survivor was extremely triggering. I spent a lot of Saturday crying after I saw the pictures and video…”
Hours after the three were released, Barak Hermann, CEO of the JCC of Greater Baltimore and incoming president and CEO of JCC Association, shared this photo from the evening the Ben Ami family visited the JCC.
Last week, the JCC once again hosted the brothers of hostages Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal. Like so many other JCCs, the persistence of the JCC in Baltimore in keeping the hostages’ stories alive as an ongoing part of their programming, transforms the community’s emotions into action.
What does one do in captivity for 500 days? How does one pass time when the body aches, the soul is bruised, and the heart yearns so desperately for home? The returned hostages tell of clinging to the familiar, the known, the comforting. They made Kiddush on Friday nights, without wine or challah, but with great intention and perhaps guided by imagination that took them on its wings to their families’ Shabbat tables. They prayed, memorized math exercises, paced back and forth in dark, narrow alcoves. Those fortunate enough to be together became each other’s lifeline, sharing strength when hope wavered.
For those left behind, especially those not included in the current deal, whose fate will be determined only when talks of further deals progress, day 500 holds no meaning. They count their forced stay in Gaza in seconds. Each second is torture and suffering. Each second is an eternity. And for them, more than 43 million seconds in the cruel maw of the Hamas monster is beyond what any human can bear.
These 500 days have made tangible the concept of Jewish peoplehood and the sense of solidarity. Throughout these 500 days, Jewish communities worldwide have opened their hearts and doors to the hostages’ families. In Baltimore’s JCC and countless others, these families found not just support but true kinship.
Their anguish reminds us that until every hostage returns home, our collective heart remains fractured but unbroken, bound together by an unshakeable solidarity that transcends borders and time itself.
Together, united, we will overcome.
Leah Garber is a senior vice president of JCC Association of North America and director of its Center for Israel Engagement in Jerusalem.
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