By Leah Garber
For we are all, yes all of us, one living human tapestry, and when one of us departs, something within us dies.”
– Moti Hammer
In this terrible pendulum swing that has gripped us for 503 days, there have been particularly painful and difficult days. But today, as four of us return to our beloved homeland’s soil, an entire nation bows its head, an entire nation mourns, the Jewish people grieve.
Together with the Bibas family, we all clung to hope that Shiri and her two small boys might somehow survive this hell. We hoped, we prayed that perhaps some remnant of humanity remained in those beasts who kidnapped women, babies, the elderly—all innocent civilians. We dreamed that somehow the bright, radiant light of Kfir and Ariel would once again illuminate Israel’s skies, that their mother’s gentle smile would erase that haunting image of terror that has become seared into our collective memory. We hoped, until hope itself was shattered.
Oded Lifshitz spent years extending his hand in peace, volunteering to help Gaza’s sick reach medical care in Israel. We prayed his kindness would echo in his captors’ hearts, that his compassion for their own people might move them to mercy. Today, Oded returns to eternal rest in the soil of the kibbutz he lovingly built. In taking his life, they didn’t just murder a man—they murdered the very hope for peace he embodied.
Oded, Nir Oz’s founder who spent his life pursuing peace and reconciliation, will rest beside those who should have carried his legacy forward—the precious Bibas children, bright promises of tomorrow stolen from this beautiful kibbutz that bears far too many wounds.
Israel’s skies weep today, rain pours down forcefully, as if angels themselves join our mourning, creating endless ripples of grief across our wounded land. Thousands of Israelis line the streets bearing Israeli flags adorned with the yellow hostage symbol to accompany the procession of coffins. Crowds stand at major intersections across our beloved country, whispering words of farewell, asking for slicha, for forgiveness. This national mourning reaches high school students, who dedicate this day to processing their fears, anxieties, and their personal and national grief together.
Since early morning, everyone has been glued to screens, following the journey home. Israeli media and many Western outlets, in an honorable joint decision, chose to spare the public the cynical, horrifying images from Gaza, where in the terrorist organization’s monstrous tradition, the four coffins were displayed on a stage in the cursed Gaza soil where the Bibas family and Oded met their deaths.
Entertainment events were canceled today, and all television and radio channels are dedicated to our national mourning. We are in despair, frustrated, and experiencing a national pain that embraces us, holds us, and—perhaps, saddest of all because it happens only in the most difficult moments—unites us. And yet we cling to hope: Parents of a child born last week in Netanya today at his bris named the baby Kfir Ariel, a nod to the boys and to our entire nation tied up in the family’s tragedy.
In North America, many JCCs will dedicate today to ceremonies, placing memorial candles and photos of the four in their lobbies. Only a year ago, during a JCC leadership mission to Israel, we marked Kfir’s first birthday by releasing orange balloons into the azure sky. We watched them soar heavenward, carrying our prayers, hoping that somehow the little boy would see their bright glow and feel our collective embrace.
Yarden, Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir loved the intimacy of their family, their peaceful, quiet, private togetherness. Against their will, they became public property, a symbol. Twenty days ago, Yarden returned from his torturous captivity, clinging to desperate hope for his family’s survival. Today, embraced by an entire nation, his family returns to him, only so he can bury them.
I visited the Bibas family’s home in Kibbutz Nir Oz several weeks after their world collapsed. The deathly silence that enveloped the backyard that once bustled with children’s laughter was chilling; the shattered toys abandoned in the yard told a tragic story.
President Isaac Herzog said this morning:
This is a moment of torment and pain. The heart of an entire nation is shattered to pieces. In the name of the State of Israel, I bow my head and ask forgiveness. Forgiveness for not fulfilling our duty. Forgiveness for not protecting you on that cursed day. Forgiveness for not bringing you home safely. May their memory be blessed.
The orange that once represented the Bibas children’s joy and vitality now stands as a testament to all we have lost—a wound that will never fully heal, a void that can never be filled.
Oded, Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir, we cradle you in our broken hearts, our tears fall like rain, as we pray for the angels to welcome you into God’s garden and let your joy of life, truncated far too soon, illuminate our skies, the dark skies of a wounded nation.
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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