For all of us, mixed emotions as war continues
As we wait with bated breath for the next set of hostages to be released, what’s been unfolding is incomprehensible. We braced ourselves to receive the bodies of 10-month-old Kfir Bibas z”l, 4-year-old Ariel Bibas z”l, their mother Shiri Bibas z”l, and 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz z”l — but Shiri did not return with her children.
Any hope that Shiri Bibas might still have been alive was dashed the next day, when her body was finally returned.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Later that day, there were several bus bombings in Israel. What could have ended in a major tragedy ended up being a massive miracle, with no casualties.
Between getting our youngest hostages back and the bombing it was a long and difficult day.
That the Bibas were returned as murder victims — the young children apparently strangled to death — and were not freed alive inspired a lot of handwringing by people who had previously been silent, which makes me ask, “Where were all these people when Oct. 7th happened? If they had spoken up then would the outcome be different?”
While each of us has focused every day on the plight of our hostages and the heavy price that the ongoing war extracts from individual Israelis, we are reminded by the reaction to the horrific murder of the Bibases that not everyone’s been paying attention.
It takes a lot of courage for the people of the world to stand with the Jewish people, one of the smallest religious groups. Thus it’s especially important for us to stand together and show how important the state of Israel is to us.
We may not agree on everything, but as a whole, the Jewish nation is proving we are one.
People are asking: What can we do to continue helping Israel? How can we continue to show our support for Israel and the hostage families? What can we do to better ourselves?
Nechama Bluth is associate for The Jewish Star. Write: nbluth@TheJewishStar.com
