Judi Weinstein-Haggai: Say Her Name
One year ago today, I, a Canadian citizen, stood in front of a fellow Canadian citizen’s house. Just nine months before, it was a home. But on the 157th anniversary of our nation, I looked at the shattered windows and bullet holes, and asked: “Why don’t all Canadians know what happened here?”
The remnants of what was once paradise – Judi Weinstein-Haggai’s life – lay as a grim reminder of the one Canadian citizen held hostage halfway across the world in Gaza.
The day I went to Kibbutz Nir Oz in Israel was the day that heartache became something that I could see, that I could touch. I was face-to-face with the aftermath of a massacre that left one quarter of this community of 400 peace advocates either killed or abducted.
It’s surreal that nine months after the fact, houses were still crumbling before my eyes – damage was still actively being done. Over 1100 people lost their lives and 251 were taken hostage on October 7th, 2023, as a result of the worst manifestations of evil that took place across southern Israel: at the Nova music festival, on Zikim beach, and in homes of neighbouring communities. Numbers have a tendency to desensitize us, to think of these world-shattering events as mere figures on a graph. But behind every number is an entire life.
One Saturday morning, a grandmother and a grandfather left the house for their morning walk around Nir Oz. Just moments later, they were severely wounded by a barrage of bullets. The grandmother managed to call an ambulance, but it wouldn’t matter – the murderers seized the lifeless bodies of Judi Weinstein-Haggai and Gadi Haggai, unarmed elderly civilians.
Hamas kidnapped them, and that was it.
Ever since that morning, the morning of October 7th, 2023, the morning that terrorists murdered and snatched Judi and Gadi into Gaza, Judi could no longer do her daily yoga. Gadi could no longer play his saxophone. A family was brutally broken and left empty, without closure or a grave to visit.
As I intently watched the door decorated with pictures of Judi and Gadi, my grief and loss overshadowed the pride and joy I had felt that morning when I saw what day it was: July 1st, the date of Confederation.
Confederation is the reason that I live in the best country in the world, the country I am grateful to call my home, which upholds the values of liberal democracy and social justice as key pillars of its national identity. But I question whether this is still what we actively strive towards in this country. How is it that we claim to stand for tolerance, equality and freedom, if there are so many of us don’t even feel a connection to a Canadian who was slaughtered, whose dead body has sat in the hands of a terrorist organization?
On June 5th, 2025, 608 days after October 7th, the prayers were finally answered. Judi and Gadi were rescued from the tunnel they were held in, pried from the hands of their captors, and freed from having their story stay dark, uncertain, and tragically unfinished.
Judi embodied tolerance, equality, and freedom. She believed in peace and coexistence, a better future for all. She lived and breathed what our country stands for. But beyond that, she was human.
The one Canadian citizen held hostage by Hamas has returned. But this is not the case for the 50 other souls held in captivity. For them, October 7th, 2023 has been one long day dragged out for over one year and eight months, and unlike Judi’s story, we don’t know how the others will end.
I want to believe that there is still time for change. All Canadians must know her name, and make the choice to humanize Judi Weinstein-Haggai. Not because she was Canadian, but because she was human. Honour her, talk about her, miss her as if she is your own. Do it for the 50 hostages who are still there, dead and alive, who urgently need to be saved. Do it to exemplify the humanity inside ourselves. This is our Canadian values in action.
On Canada Day 2024, in Kibbutz Nir Oz, a distance of only a few kilometers separated me and the hostages held in the Gaza Strip. One year later, 50 of them are in the exact same position, longing to be saved.
I finally turned around and started walking down the trails of Nir Oz, lined with newly planted flowers that breathe life into the surrounding sea of devastation. A reminder that hell on Earth used to be paradise.
I reached a structure that was once a house, now burned to a crisp, and stopped. I stood there, in front of what’s left of my dear friend’s aunt and uncle’s house, before they were mercilessly engulfed by the flames, before their beautiful daughter and their precious red-haired grandchildren were kidnapped, then strangled to death in captivity. A Canadian citizen stands in front of an Israeli citizen’s house. A human in front of a human’s house.
