Amid all the heartbreak of the past 16 months, this week feels especially difficult, as Hamas has handed over the bodies of three Israeli hostages—two young children, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, and 84-year-old Oded Lifshitz. The mother of the Bibas children, Shiri Bibas was initially believed to be returned, however, during the identification process, it was determined that the remains were not those of Shiri Bibas and could not be identified as any known hostage.
You can read our statement on the return of their remains here.
For many, the Bibas family became a symbol of the tragedy of October 7—not only because the entire immediate family was taken hostage, but because Kfir Bibas was the youngest captive, taken at just nine months old. Their unmistakable red hair, captured in a haunting video still from their abduction, became an unforgettable image of that horrific day.
Oded Lifshitz was one of the oldest hostages taken to Gaza. At 84 years old, he was a founding member of Kibbutz Nir Oz, a lifelong peace activist, and, as a journalist, one of the first to arrive in Beirut in 1982 to report on the Sabra and Shatila massacre.
It is the small stories, the intimate glimpses into their humanity, that made these hostages larger than life to the Israeli public and to diaspora Jewry, which has been calling for their release—Ariel Bibas in his Batman costume, Oded Lifshitz’s magnificent backyard cactus garden.
We hear these stories and see these images, and we are reminded of our own sons, cousins, nephews refusing to take off their Batman capes before school, or of our fathers, grandfathers, and uncles tending to their gardens during family gatherings.
It is impossible, then, not to feel a deep sense of closeness, compassion, and familiarity with these people and their families—to not grieve alongside them, to not feel as though we are one and the same.
And naturally, with that closeness to their pain, we also feel anger, sadness, fear—even the impulse for revenge. Despite so many hostage families, including the Bibas family, pleading with the public to reject calls for vengeance and to focus instead on securing the release of those still held captive, many are using this moment to demand a resumption of the war, an end to peace negotiations, and declaring that there are no innocents in Gaza.
Hamas, of course, continues to fuel this anger, staging yet another grotesque and offensive spectacle—parading the bodies of hostages while their own people starve and desperately need aid. The macabre display of four coffins adorned with keys that do not fit is enough to make anyone’s blood boil, and such rage often leads to the desire for retribution.
When Israeli intellectual Yeshayahu Leibowitz was once told by someone that they had stopped believing in God after the Holocaust, he replied, “Then you never believed in God. If a person stops believing after an awful event, it shows that he only obeyed God because he thought he understood God’s plan, or because he expected to see a reward.”
Human behaviour is often reactionary—we respond in kind to the actions taken against us. But in a time when humanity feels scarce, when compassion seems in short supply, and when we are tempted to let our morals take a backseat to vengeance, we should take a lesson from Leibowitz: we must choose our path and our actions based on our core beliefs and values, not on our expectations.
We should not shape our responses based on what others do; we should shape them based on who we are and the standards we set for ourselves. We should not abandon our principles—our Judaism, our humanism—just because others have abandoned theirs. We should not race to the bottom but instead hold onto our values even more fiercely when they are tested.
It is far too easy to surrender the moral high ground when times are hard. But our moral code does not exist for the easy times; it exists for the difficult ones. It is simple to act with integrity when that integrity is not being challenged—far harder when it is. But that is precisely why we hold onto these ideals in the first place.
Furthermore, the argument that we are justified in revenge, in inflicting more suffering because of what has been done to us, is one that can be made by both sides of this conflict. It is also precisely what perpetuates cycles of violence that each side justifies as resistance.
The only way out is up. Anger and vengeance are not an action plan. It is precisely now, as we feel our moral compass slipping, that we must cling to it more tightly. Only then can we find a way out of this nightmare—by pursuing a path that sees the completion of the ceasefire and hostage release deal, an end to the war, and a future built on a two-state solution that ensures the security and safety of both Israelis and Palestinians.
It is easy to stop believing, as Leibowitz said, after an awful event. But for the sake of the Bibas family, the Lifshitz family, those still waiting for their loved ones to come home, and those who know their loved ones never will—we must keep believing.
In a better way. A more human way. A way of peace.
Not because someone else agrees. Not because anyone else is willing.
But because we are. Because there is no other way.