Our Promise to Yarden Bibas

Yekutiel Yehudah Halberstam (1905-1994) was born to a Hasidic family of the great Sanz dynasty in the small Jewish town of Rudnik, Poland. During the Holocaust, Rabbi Halberstam’s beloved wife and 11 children were sent to Auschwitz, where they were immediately murdered. As the sole survivor of his family, he faced the daily Nazi death selection was kept prisoner under the worst of horrific conditions and subject to horrific torture and torment for years of his captivity. During his captivity, Rabbi Halberstam was shot in the arm by a Nazi and left to bleed to death. He wrapped a leaf around the wound and made a vow that if he survived, he would dedicate the rest of his life to saving the lives of others.

The Rebbe survived. Immediately after the war, he remained in displaced persons camps to help feed the survivors and to care for the many orphans who, like himself, were the sole survivors of their families. Like many survivors who had no place to return to, Rabbi Halberstam moved to New York, remarried, and ultimately went on to have seven more children while rebuilding an entire Hassidic community that continues to thrive today. He then went on to make aliyah and fulfilled his vow to save as many lives as possible by founding the Sanz Medical Center/Laniado Hospital. Today, the hospital serves half a million people, runs strictly according to Jewish law, and has the distinction of being the only hospital in Israel that has never closed. In the decades after the war, Rabbi Halberstam would evoke the memory of his late wife and children as his source of inspiration to heal the world — spiritually and physically.

The Jewish world has held Yarden Bibas in its heart since the first images of Shiri and their precious children Ariel and Kfir were first abducted by the savages who would later murder them in cold blood. Adding to the layers of injury to this tragedy was the dearth of international outcry. Like Rabbi Halberstam, the memory of Yarden’s wife and children will allow him to ultimately find purpose for his survivorship. His immediate circle will ensure that he finds a way to get up in the morning when at this stage, there is little seemingly left to live for. Yet, as the horrors of this war ultimately end and Israel returns to a fragile state of normalcy, as they so bravely do after countless periods of devastation, we must remember Shiri, Ariel and Kfir not only for the innocence of spirit they represented in the face of the world’s worst evil since the Holocaust, but as a force that united millions of people around the world in Israel’s existential fight for its very survival.  

In their brief time on earth, Ariel and Kfir Bibas did more to unite Klal Israel than any religious figure or politician. Their angelic faces and red locks became the symbol of why Israel matters in a world where right and wrong are so often conflated by those who claim to have the answers. 

In their brief time on earth, Ariel and Kfir Bibas did more to unite Klal Israel than any religious figure or politician. Their angelic faces and red locks became the symbol of why Israel matters in a world where right and wrong are so often conflated by those who claim to have the answers. How many families lit candles on Shabbat for them and for all of the hostages so cruelly torn from their families and communities? How many unaffiliated Jews took on mitzvot in the merit of their return? In Exodus 33, God tells Moses that “I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” We will never understand, and we will never accept why the story of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir had to end in such unspeakable tragedy. However, the impact of these babies on the entirety of Klal Israel can be compared to that of the greatest of Torah giants and we promise you, Yarden, that their legacy will live on long after Hamas is obliterated and serve as our collective moral compass for generations to come.

Lisa Ansell is the Associate Director of the USC Casden Institute and Lecturer of Hebrew Language at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Los Angeles.