Pro-Palestinian demonstrators march during a rally outside US Consulate General and marched in downtown Toronto, on December 16, 2023
symbolically adopt one particular hostage whose life somehow resonates with them. For me, that hostage was Ofri Brodutch, an Israeli girl who was abducted, along with her mother, two younger brothers, and a 4-year-old neighbour, the day before her tenth birthday. Ofri had spent the past summer in Can- ada, going to one of the Zionist camps here and visiting her aunt and uncle who live in Toronto. She reminded me so much of my grown daughter and her friends who had started camp together at that age. Ofri’s uncle Aharon was tireless in his efforts to help his brother’s family. He met with pol- iticians pleading for the Canadian govern- ment to exert its international pressure and
facilitate the hostages’ release. In a news conference from Ottawa, he recalled how the Israeli soldiers who had searched his brother’s family home after the attack cried when they found Ofri’s birthday cake still in the fridge. Ofri and her family were freed on Nov. 26. The video released by the Israeli hospital where they were taken, showed them hav- ing a joyful reunion with the family dog. Keeping the story of the hostages, especially those who remained in Gaza, in front of our readers has been one of our priorities. The Jewish community found creative ways to keep the hostages’ stories before the mainstream media, when their attention flagged. We have written about
A few were killed in their homes—Netta Epstein died protecting his girlfriend, Adi Vital-Kaploun, was killed while shielding her two little boys. Two were older women, Silver and Judih Weinstein-Haggai, who had chosen to live on the southern border despite the risks. We wrote about as many of the Can- adians who were killed in the attacks as we could, contacting their friends and families to paint a picture of how they lived, rather than only about how they died. Although it was initially believed, and hoped, that some of these people were alive and being held hostage in Gaza, in the end none of the Canadians survived. I have heard that in Israel, people will
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