We Carried Their Names: Because Silence Was Never an Option

Hope kept the fire alive in our hearts.

When the world went silent, the lions roared.

For two long and dreadful years, our people fought –

some in uniform,

and for the rest of us, in the only ways we could:

through voices, vigils, art, and education.

In spirit, in truth, in every act of courage we could offer.

Because silence was never an option.

For every sleepless night,

every friend lost,

every word of hatred we had to endure –

yet still, in every breath that refused to give up,

from Tel Aviv to Toronto,

we carried their faces,

and their memories in our hearts

like embers that refused to die.

We whispered their names into prayers, into posts,

into the silence of our own tears,

refusing to let the world forget them.

Today, the twenty souls who survived the unimaginable are finally home.

But the road ahead is long,

for the families still waiting to lay their loved ones to rest,

for the parents of those who will never come home,

for a nation still grieving what was lost,

and for a world still waking from the fog of distortion and deceit

woven by hate and amplified by a media that lost its way.

Today, freedom answered.

But healing is the next battle.

May the light of our people heal what darkness tried to break.

Welcome home.