The Hostages You Might Not Have Heard About

 Every morning when I daven the blessing "matir assurim" (You free the captives", which, goodness knows, never felt so relevant in my life as it has the past 6.5 months....), I stop for a few minutes and say the names of each of the hostages (as far as we know. See chabad.org/hostages). 

There are the "special ones", like the Bibas children, adorable Kfir ben Shiri, who, if still alive, turned one in captivity and has spent the bulk of his short life as a hostage, and his four year-old brother Ariel ben Shiri 

And the hostages I have some tenuous connection to: NationOnPause.org sent me a new name to daven for after Elad Katzir was confirmed murdered (felt like a kick in the gut when I opened my email and saw this, even though I had already heard the confirmation of his death)

Now I am "dedicating my Shabbat" to 83 year-old retired journalist Oded ben Bilha Lifshitz (doesn't he look like everyone's favorite grandpa??)

But then there are other names on my list....Last month, at a talk outside the United Nations, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, said that hostages include 8 Muslim Arabs, a Catholic and a Hindu, 8 Thai Buddhists and at least 2 black African Christians. Here are some of their stories:

Bipin Joshi, from Nepal who, only three weeks before October 7, arrived in Israel on an academic program about farming

Mohammed El Alatrash, a Bedouin father of 13

Qaid Farhan Alkadi, a Muslim Bedouin

Hamza Alziadna, a Muslim Bedouin. An uncle murdered on October 7, another uncle hailed as a hero for stuffing more than 30 people into his 14-seat minivan and speeding through Hamas shooters to save people from the Nova music festival, and Hamza taken hostage along with a brother, sister and their father, Yusuf Alziadna.... 

Orion Hernandez Radoux from Mexico. He is German-Israeli Shani Louk's boyfriend.  A photo of Shani, half dressed and lying face down in the back of pickup truck while surrounded by jubilant Hamas terrorists, won the AP "Team Photo of the Year" Award. I choose NOT to post that photo, but one showing her glowing with life:

Please Gd, as we end Passover, the Holiday of Freedom, may all of these people and every one of the 133 people still being held hostage, be home soon, and may our beautiful county only know permanent peace and security. Chag Sameach.