The world woke up last week to the gut-wrenching announcement that Hamas would be turning over four murdered hostages, including Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas. For 502 days, the Bibas family, and all of us, clung to the desperate hope that somehow, despite the horror of October 7, they might still come home alive.
Hope was all we had because for 502 days, Hamas cruelly refused to provide proof of life, refused to let the world know whether Shiri was still holding her baby, or whether Ariel was still waking up each morning asking for his abba.
For 502 days, we begged the world to care. For 502 days, we watched people debate whether Jews deserved to be slaughtered. Now we know what we were all afraid to say out loud. The hope we all clung to for 502 days was murdered by Hamas.
Hamas didn’t just kidnap Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir, they kidnapped the entire Bibas family.
Yarden Bibas was held for 484 days, tortured, used for propaganda, and released with no knowledge of his wife and children’s fate. Hamas played cruel games with his mind, telling him his family was alive, then that they were dead, then alive again, then dead. For 502 days, he didn’t know.
Shiri and Yarden should have been watching Kfir take his first steps, preparing Ariel for his first day of kindergarten. Instead, Shiri and her babies spent their last moments alone, cut off from the world and from those who loved them.
We all saw their cruel kidnapping. Hamas wanted us to see it. They proudly filmed themselves committing war crimes with GoPro cameras, broadcasting their brutality to the world. The footage is burned into our collective memory. Shiri, terrified, clutching her children, wailing, their little faces red with fear.
She was a mother in the most primal sense, shielding her children even as terrorists ripped them from their home that fateful morning and drove them straight to the dark tunnels in Gaza. They were not the victims of crossfire.
They were not casualties of war. They were stolen. They were tortured. Then, they were murdered. The world promised us Never Again, yet here we are. The world was silent... again.
Among those still missing is Edan Alexander, a 20-year-old from Tenafly, New Jersey, and the last known American hostage believed to be alive. I have, multiple times, heard his parents speak – Yael and Adi Alexander.
One story they shared has stayed with me more than anything else. A former hostage who was released described seeing Edan in the tunnels, trying to negotiate the release of Thai hostages.
He pleaded with his captors, “He has nothing to do with this, release him” – a 20-year-old, held captive, tortured, starved, uncertain if he will ever see his family again, yet still fighting for someone else’s freedom. While Hamas filmed hostage videos meant to break their victims, Edan was using his captivity to try and save another life. That is who the Jewish people are.
While Edan fights for his life in a Gaza tunnel, we are told that our grief is inconvenient. While Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas were held, murdered, and discarded like objects, we are being told to move forward.
While Jewish blood soaked the floors of homes and music festivals, we are being told to find balance. While our hostages are still underground, people chant for their captors in the streets and call it justice.
October 7 wasn't just a pogrom
For Jews, October 7 wasn’t just a pogrom. It was a revealing. It revealed who stands with us and who never did. It revealed who prioritizes their own comfort over Jewish survival.
It revealed who believes Jewish pain is real and who immediately sought to minimize it. It revealed the heartbreaking betrayal so many felt, including me, by people you once trusted, people who sat at your table, who went fishing with your children, who ate in your home, who you called friend. They had their moment to stand with you without hesitation.
They failed.
When Jews were butchered in their homes, instead of asking how we were, how our family was, how our people were surviving the worst slaughter since the Holocaust, they said:
“But what about...?”
“Don’t you think you should acknowledge...?”
“It’s more complex than that.”
No. No, it’s not.
There is nothing complex about babies burned alive. There is nothing nuanced about a mother shielding her children while terrorists drag them away.
There is nothing two-sided about Jewish children being murdered in their beds while the world debated whether it was politically convenient to care.
There is nothing complex about a Holocaust survivor, a mother, and two babies being sent home in coffins, being ransomed for terrorists.
The war in Israel will end, but the war for Jewish survival will last for years. The elephant in the room is that some have already forgotten. Some have moved on to performative unity while the hostages are still underground. Some have chosen silence or self-preservation, rather than standing firm in the face of antisemitism.
Some have actively blocked Jewish voices or their allies from being heard because the truth is politically inconvenient for them, but there are those who have not forgotten.
There are those who stood up without hesitation, who put truth before comfort, who risked their reputations, their careers, and even their safety to speak up for the Jewish people. They have been attacked, ridiculed, and isolated for saying what should be obvious.
These are not just names on a list. These are the people standing between us and the abyss. If we want to make sure that Never Again actually means something, we must stand with them, protect them, amplify them, and never let them stand alone.
As one resident said to me, “To be honest, Councilwoman Goldberg, I have been seriously doubting that we will convince anyone. We won’t convince them that this feels like Kristallnacht to us. We won’t convince them that ‘From the River to the Sea’ is a genocidal slogan. We won’t convince them that your resolution was just an excuse and that these protests are meant to terrorize the Jews... because we are Jews, and it would have occurred even if there was no resolution. But we need to say it out loud anyway! Even if it’s just for us! Because it’s the truth! So that we can strengthen each other and know we are not alone... We need to thank the brave voices screaming into the dark abyss, because the Jewish people hear them, and it helps them be a little less afraid.”
The Bibas family, the family the world clung to hope for, is forever broken. The world hoped Hamas would send that baby home to us in time to celebrate the birthdays he should have spent in his mother’s arms, not in Gaza. They have come home, but not in the way we prayed for.
There are still 63 hostages waiting to come home. Edan Alexander and 62 others are still waiting. We already know that for 36 of them, we will be sitting shiva. There is no moving on. There is only this new life Hamas has declared for us. There is only remembering. There is only fighting to make sure this never happens again.
We’re not done sitting shiva. Not yet. Not until justice is done.
The writer is a councilwoman of Teaneck, New Jersey, and author of Teaneck’s resolution condemning Hamas.