Little kids in orange capes with black Batman logos ran around the yard of the Jerusalem Paoton Ton daycare, celebrating the holiday of Purim but also commemorating Ariel Bibas, killed in Hamas captivity along with his mother and baby brother, and brought back to Israel last month.
“All of Israel shuddered from the story, and we all hoped for a different ending,” said the nursery school teacher, Sima Aaharon. At the daycare, the children and teachers sing the anthem each morning and pray for the well-being of Israel’s soldiers, Aaharon said, adding that the prayer is also for the hostages and their families.
“The case of Ariel, Kfir, Shiri, and Yarden [Bibas] touched us all,” she said, adding that while there were other stories that were no less horrifying, “the feeling of seeing a child with a Batman costume, running around so happy, and it was cut short in a moment,” gave them the strength to make the children under their care happy.
She said they wanted to give the children the strength to be superheroes in preparation for their lives in Israel. Seeing the kids dressed up left the staff choked up and emotional, she said.
“We can’t totally explain to them who Kfir is and who Ariel is because they won’t be able to understand, and we won’t be able to give them a full explanation of what happened to them.”
So, instead, the staff is focused on making the children happy, she said.
'We are thinking about you'
“We wanted to [send the message] ‘we are thinking about you,’ even if we are at a small daycare in Jerusalem.
“Our big goal is to create some sort of cohesion in the people of Israel, to create unity, and to create peace,” she said.
She added that today, there “are [divisive] camps and there is a lot of pain.”
“Everything is very, very hard,” she said, adding that the costumes were a way to offer support and a hug to the families that have suffered.