The Loss of Ariel and Kfir Bibas Is a Loss for Every Mother

I’m exhausted from defending myself when I express the fear and despair raging within me since Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas brutally killed around 1200 people and seized more than 200 hostages; children included. If you could see into my soul, you’d understand that my heart aches at the loss of any child — they are all innocent and undeserving of such evil. Yet, I cannot say that Jewish children deserve to live without being told that I care less for the children of Gaza.

I don’t care less; they all deserve better.

But throughout history the lives of Jews have been placed inferiorly to that of others — and our children are no exception. I follow the Auschwitz Memorial on Facebook and see the faces of mothers and fathers who perished in the Holocaust on my timeline daily. Even worse, I see the faces of their frightened children. Yet, what I haven’t seen — and will never see — are the faces of my great aunt’s children because their image, their identities and their humanity were erased when their lives were taken by the Nazis. It’s as if they never existed.

We can’t let that happen to the Bibas family.

I arrived at my son’s soccer game on the morning of Oct. 7 to learn of Gaza’s attack on Israelis, and for the first time in my lifetime the darkness of the Holocaust caught up to our modern Jewish lives. Since that morning, antisemitism has grown enormously from an already grotesque level; and yet my disapproval of the murder of Jewish children continues to result in the assumption that I must not care about the death of others.

Of course I care about all children, as do most mothers. In the realm of motherhood, there is an unspoken understanding that we protect every child as if it were our own and that is why we feel one another’s pain so deeply. The murder of children should be followed by an uproar of every mother in the world. Jewish children should be no exception.

Just as America was unaware of the intricacies of the gas chambers until it was too late, I didn’t yet know anything about Ariel and Kfir Bibas as my son kicked the ball across the field that fall morning. During those very moments my son was playing soccer, the Bibas boys were taken from the only home they’d ever known, as their mother, Shiri, squeezed them tightly for possibly the last time.

Soon I learned of them, and I haven’t stopped thinking of them since.

When the picture of Shiri with her babies was released, every Jewish mother felt her pain as if it were her own. We wanted to fight for her, to rescue her beautiful children and to protect them from this world that considers them inferior because of their religion — and their country. We wanted to take her pain away but like her we were helpless. Making up only 0.2 percent of the world’s population, our Jewish community was crying out alone. It wasn’t enough.

Now, after roughly 500 days since the initial brutal attack, CNN reported that the bodies of Ariel and Kfir were released — Shiri remains unaccounted for. Each day I thought of these babies, I hoped by some miracle they were alive and being treated with as much dignity as terrorists can bestow. As a Jewish mother to two boys, their story felt close to me. It could have been mine — and I know many mothers feel the same.

Their father, Yarden Bibas, was released from captivity earlier this month and I cannot begin to imagine his pain. I can’t dissolve it or reduce it, but he should know that many parents are grieving alongside him.

Unlike the many children who perished in Europe without anyone saying their name, we will speak of Ariel and Kfir today and always. In a time where news spreads like wildfire and pictures and videos are uploaded to social media in mere seconds, we now see the faces of those who may have ceased to exist long ago. Perhaps a lesson from the past is to learn the identity of the victims of hate crimes — to see their faces, tell their stories and speak of them whenever they enter our minds. We can honor their existence by never forgetting who they were.

When I say that the attack on Israel makes me angry — that it reignites a fear so deeply rooted into my genetics, and that underestimating it is a colossal threat to Jewish people everywhere — I say it boldly. When I say that Jewish children deserve to live, I say it for my ancestors. I say it for the Bibas family. I say it because the rest of the world won’t.

Everyone should be enraged by the murder of Ariel and Kfir. The loss of these children is a loss for every mother in the world.

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