The Bibas Murders and the Gift of Being Jewish

2/20/25

Music was playing, Gazans were celebrating, and the cynical ceremonial stage was set. The morally bankrupt and Hamas-fawning Red Cross stood ready with their terrorist counterparts.

The crowds of cheering and complicit bystanders suddenly parted, making room for an approaching van that came to a sudden halt.

And then they walked out. On their own two feet. Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas. Ariel with hardly a memory of life beyond tunnels was now a tall but frail boy, and Kfir, now a toddler of two years old who had learned to walk in the tunnels. They were finally coming back home. Alive.

I woke up last night at about 4am with my heart pounding from this dream. I anxiously grabbed my phone, hoping that reality would be a reflection of my blissful dream and that somehow the previous reports of yesterday were just an awful Hamas joke.

I opened my phone and saw the Bibas family had indeed just left Gaza. But they were in coffins (IDF just reported that Shiri was missing?!).

I've sobbed a lot today. Not very manly, I admit, but who's the fool who told you boys don't cry?

I cry for Yarden, a young man whose family was ripped away from him in the most merciless fashion.

I cry for Shiri who tried her best to shelter her little babies but couldn't compete with the evil terrorists who snatched her from her bed that morning.

And I cry for Ariel and Kfir thinking about what they must've gone through until their murder. Did they go first? Did they see their mom dead? Did they die crying alone with nobody coming to their rescue?

But in a strange way, today's emotions have also been comforting.

I realized that the fact that millions of people around the world were crying for a family they've never met is the greatest story of what it means to be Jewish.

Being Jewish means you are part of the world's largest family. A family that will be there for you if you need a place for Shabbat dinner, and a family who will cry for you when you are suffering.

In millions of Jewish homes across the world today, men and women, boys and girls cried for a family they've never met. That's powerful, and it's wildly comforting.

Today, it became all so much more clear to me, how beautiful and how precious it is to be Jewish and how lucky, how proud, and how fortunate we are to be part of this family.

Next month, on our Martha's Vineyard community trip to Israel, we will visit the fresh tombstones of the Bibas family.

I will tell them that we thought about them constantly on Martha's Vineyard and that our community gathered together and prayed for them.

I'll tell them that we advocated for them on our little island and that we stood up against protesters who shamelessly campaigned for their kidnappers.

I will tell them that their father is not alone, and that he has millions of family members around the world who cry and want to be there for him.

And I will thank them so deeply for making me appreciate the gift of being Jewish infinitely more today than I did yesterday.