{"id":52693,"date":"2025-09-22T05:10:50","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T09:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/hostage-families-mark-second-rosh-hashanah-since-october-7\/22\/09\/2025\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T05:10:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T09:10:50","slug":"hostage-families-mark-second-rosh-hashanah-since-october-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/hostage-families-mark-second-rosh-hashanah-since-october-7\/22\/09\/2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Hostage families mark second Rosh Hashanah since October 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As the hostages now approach their third Simchat Torah in Gaza, she said, the feeling that time has frozen only grows stronger.<\/p>\n

Nearly two years have passed. This Rosh Hashanah marks the second holiday the hostages will spend in captivity. Forty-eight men and women remain in Gaza, and for their families, the High Holy Days have become a painful reminder of the time that has slipped away since October 7.<\/p>\n

Maccabit Meir, the aunt of hostages Gali and Ziv Berman<\/a>, described Rosh Hashanah Eve as \u201ca black day\u201d \u2013 not because it feels different from any other day of suffering, but because holidays amplify the sense of time standing still.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe holidays give it a kind of weight, the passage of time that they\u2019re there,\u201d Meir told Maariv.<\/em> \u201cThey were kidnapped just after Rosh Hashanah. The seasons change, the year circles around, the holidays come and go, and they are still there.\u201d As the hostages now approach their third Simchat Torah in Gaza, she said, the feeling that time has frozen only grows stronger.<\/p>\n

Vicky Cohen, the mother of hostage Nimrod Cohen<\/a>, shared the same sense of longing. \u201cHere we are again in the High Holy Days, and they\u2019re still not here. Nimrod is still not home. You can\u2019t celebrate, you can\u2019t mark the holidays,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Life, she explained, has been unrecognizable since the abduction. \u201cSince October 7, we don\u2019t\u2026 there are no family meals, not on Fridays and not on holidays,\u201d Cohen said. For her, the holidays are especially painful: \u201cIt\u2019s just another sad day, and for me it\u2019s even harder than a regular day. I just want it to pass, for the holidays to end, for Nimrod to already be home.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a social media post on Monday Yarden Bibas shared the sentiment: “The holidays are not holidays for me without you. Dates and days are meaningless. Shiri, Ariel, Kfir – I love you most in the world, always in the world.”<\/p>\n

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