Our Reluctance to Let Go of Hostage Square

When the dream of the living hostages returning home came to fruition this past October, our community looked for ways to ritualize the moment. Inspired by a colleague in Las Vegas, we invited our members to attend Simchat Torah celebrations, exactly two years after the darkest day in modern history in the Jewish calendar, and affix the yellow ribbons and “Bring Them Home” dog tags that most in our circles wore, to the mantle of one of our Torah Scrolls.

After the festive dancing, a line formed and a fascinating sociological phenomenon occurred. People came to the Torah, kissed it, but were reluctant to take off their ribbons or pull the chains that had been resting on their necks for almost twenty-four months, off.  A very few did remove the pins. Most did not. When I asked why, the common answer was, “I am waiting until all the bodies are home.”

I was in Israel a short time ago. To better measure time, it was when only three bodies abducted on October 7^th, had yet to be returned.  Curiosity brought me to Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, a place I had visited at least a dozen times since that dark October day. It was as if nothing had changed. There were two kiosks selling wares including shirts, hats, magnets, ribbons and bumper stickers. Art installations beckoning Evyatar David to sit on a bench was still up and adorned with graffiti as if awaiting his return. The only thing is, thank God, Evyatar was returned. Alive.

Alon Ohel’s piano was front and center in Hostage Square. For months it was played by passers-by hoping the melody would be heard by him in a distant tunnel and give Alon hope. Except, now, Alon is with his family in the outskirts of Karmiel, Israel. He is home. Yet the instrument was still there as if reality had not yet arrived, even though the living hostages had.

The 100-meter papier-mache tunnel that replicated the darkness and cruelty of the barbaric captors was still calling in tourists, sight seekers and onlookers. Why was this site still up and running as if reality had not changed? Why was the clock still ticking, marking time since 6:29 AM on October 7^th, instead of being stopped?

Never mistake my question for flippancy about returning all the bodies taken from Israel. Each one needs to be brought home for burial, and I have long advocated for such. The focus of hostage square has been for the living to be returned and the national nightmare to come to a proper close.  Now there, we seem to be incapable of letting go.

When my father died, more than fourteen years ago, I vowed to recite the Kaddish prayer for him daily. It dictated my schedule and outwardly identified with my feelings and new identity of orphan. As a mourner, I did not need to explain why I was not dancing at weddings, attending concerts or movies, or was sitting in a different place in synagogue.

When the mourning period was coming to an end, I began to feel a sense of dread and fright. This tether and outward identity of standing and uttering this prayer would soon end, but my feelings of sadness, loneliness and missing my parent had not abated. My beard, now long, would be trimmed and I would again become an everyman.

How would people know that I am a changed person, a scarred soul, a sad son without my father in my life if I no longer have these markers for the outside world to be forewarned? How could anyone dial into where I am emotionally, spiritually and psychologically?

My hunch is that Israeli society and Zionists worldwide are reluctant to let go of these chains and ribbons and hesitant to abandon Hostage Square for fear that other’s will think we are Honky-Dorey. A-OK. Fine and dandy. That we have moved on from our trauma. We are not fine and our trauma in many ways is just beginning. This pain and stress will last generations. PTSD in Israel is as omnipresent as hummus.  It will take decades to metabolize the reality and betrayal that happened by our leadership, our neighbors and the world.

Equally worrisome, is that we are clinging on to these reminders of our past two-years so that we do not forget our pain and trauma and lull ourselves back into the thought that it was all a horrible nightmare, when we know it was a deadly reality. As if seeing the yellow ribbon in the mirror or on the bumper of our car will be the reminder that we lived it. Survived it. That those items will justify our jitters and distrust and insomnia.

The faded blue numbers on the inner forearm of Holocaust survivors were not the critical ingredient to remind them of what they endured and lost. Wearing long sleeves would not erase those dark truths and demons that lurked in their minds and psyche.

We have always been a tribe that painstakingly weaves three separate cords of our history, our present and our aspiration to make an unbreakable bond of hope.  So now, it is time for us to take off the ribbons, remove the chains, scrape off the stickers and return Hostage Square to the park it was on October 6^th. A memorial is of course appropriate. But let us grab those strings and braid that cord into a tapestry of shared trauma, resilience and possibility for today and tomorrow.