'I am sorry': A Yom Kippur apology to the families of hostages

The electric bus drifts through the bustling streets of Tel Aviv as it so often does, exchanging passengers of all colors and shapes at every station. The hum of its engine is almost drowned out by the city’s endless rhythm – the shouting of shopkeepers, the metallic screech of scooters weaving recklessly between lanes, the distant music spilling from cafés that never seem to close. The sun greets me with almost too much affection as I step into Israel’s commercial center.

Tel Aviv is a city that can overwhelm the senses. It is full of places and experiences that inspire, excite, and, on occasion, stupefy. It is a place of contradictions, where hi-tech offices stand across from decaying Bauhaus balconies, where street art blooms beside industry, where cultures of all kinds marvelously collide.

The September sunshine of the Middle East shows no remorse. It forces all who ascend the compact stone square to squint and keep their heads low, as though nature itself is demanding humility. In this posture, it is easy to forget about the dozens of skyscrapers that tower above, reminders of Tel Aviv’s constant appetite for growth and progress.

Yet one thing cannot be forgotten: the unmistakable sense of anguish that fills the air, both physical and emotional, as tangible as the heat itself.

This square has become an open wound in the heart of the city. Unlike Rabin Square, known for political rallies, or Habima Square, alive with culture, Hostage Square, even if some would wish otherwise, exists for a single, devastating reason: absence. It is defined not by what it contains but by what it represents: the missing, the stolen, those in the direst of straits.

I carry this weight with me as I step into the Hamas tunnel simulation. The ceiling is oppressively low, forcing me into a small crouch. Cement walls press in from all sides. The air smells faintly of dust and iron, though I know it is imagined. Speakers blare the horrifying sounds of war: sirens, gunfire, explosions, voices crying out in terror. The sensory assault is overwhelming.

When I emerge into the sunlight, blinking and shocked, the heaviness does not leave me for a moment. Just a few steps away stands a torched vehicle brought from Mefalsim Junction, one of the first civilian areas seized by Hamas on that wretched of all days.

Its frame is twisted, its windows shattered, its metal charred black. You cannot look at it without imagining the people inside, their final moments burned into the very steel.

Next comes a blood-stained tent, torn to shreds. Inside lie artificial bones, scattered across the floor, surrounded by personal items: shoes, jewelry, fragments of colorful clothing. These remnants once belonged to young, innocent Israelis who simply wanted to celebrate in song and dance, but who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The mock display is crude, but its truth is undeniable: this was not just an attack on bodies, but on the very fabric of free Israeli life.

Some posters bear the cherished Hebrew word chazarti (I have returned). These are the lucky ones, though luck feels like a cruel word when applied to surviving initial trauma. Others are struck through by a shattered line, signaling the worst of all outcomes. Eleven delicate hearts remain untouched, their owners still trapped somewhere deep beneath the Gaza Strip.

Dozens of faces stare back at me. They are young and old, secular and religious, soldiers, students, musicians, parents. Each face is a universe. Each poster is a vivid reminder from which one cannot look away.

“This is the tent of the people of Israel,” Dalia explains. “That is what binds them together. That is why they were taken. And that is why they must return, as samples of our society, as victims of being free Israelis, such as you and me, at this very moment.”

Her voice is steady, but her sad eyes elude the weight of what she says. She continues: “This square was founded by the hostage families for the hostage families. This is where they came to share their grief and despair. This is where they slept in sleeping bags, waiting for their loved ones to return, or, God forbid, to receive confirmation of their death.

“This square is an Israeli symbol of tragic human loss. Politics has no place here, because the fight is on behalf of the families who, for the past two years, have had an integral part of themselves torn away and held captive by the very definition of evil. This is a place for those in pain to demand its end. All pain must end, and this pain has lasted far too long.”

DALIA’S WORDS escort me back into the harsh sunshine. At the center of the square stands a large communal tent. Inside, the families of the hostages have hung up cherished photographs from times shared before their loved ones were taken. Birthdays, weddings, army graduations, family vacations, a catalogue of typical family joy.

So many happy faces. So many ordinary families, just like mine and yours. A gallery of Israeli families of all backgrounds and affiliations. A gallery united by tragedy, yet one whose story is still unwritten, whose outcome can still be mitigated.

I move toward a long table covered with messages of hope, prayer, and love sent from every corner of the globe. Notes written in English, French, Spanish, Japanese, and Arabic. Drawings by children, Psalms copied by hand, words of solidarity from strangers who have traveled thousands of miles to show us that we aren’t alone in this tragedy.

I write my own message, one of unity, of recognition that it could just as easily have been me at that festival, or my cousin on the border, or a close friend in a nearby kibbutz. I write that their pain is present and felt, by me and by everyone else, always.

We are the majority of the nation, the ones fortunate enough to have come out mostly unscathed from the Hamas terror attacks. Life as Israelis and as Jews is about perseverance, about staring grief in the face and choosing to continue. But survival feels like an undeserved privilege, especially when in the square itself.

Our lives go on – work, school, family dinners, weddings, funerals. Yet even in these routines, the hostages haunt us. Every news alert sends a jolt through the body. Every unconfirmed rumor stirs dread. We want this deep anguish to end, but we are not in the position to decide.

So, we pray, we donate, we volunteer, we serve, and we read every update about the hostages and their families. We hold on to hope, however fragile, because abandoning it altogether would serve no worthy purpose.

It’s okay to feel that our actions are not enough. In fact, this helplessness is what binds us together. In Hebrew, the term is arvut hadadit (mutual guarantee). This ancient principle of mutual advocacy is the essence of our people, the understanding that each of us is responsible for the other’s wellbeing.

It built the foundation of the State of Israel, and it will be the force that ensures we continue to endure as a nation.

I am sorry for their pain.

I am sorry for their helplessness.

I am sorry we did not protect them.

I am sorry they are not back here with us.

I am sorry for it all.

On this Yom Kippur, I am sorry that we as a people, who know far better than any other that there is no salvation without our unity, did not perform our destined duty toward the hostage families.

We did not bring home all their sons and daughters, their brothers and sisters, their mothers and fathers, their grandparents, their friends, their families, their loved ones, who are now loved by us all.

No excuses, no explanations, no conditions. Just a promise that was not kept.

I am sorry.

We are all so sorry. ■