Thursday, February 27, 2025
Elder of Ziyon
Batman weeps: A mother’s fight, two little lions, and
a nation forever changed
How much impact can a
person have on the world when they are only given four years to live?
Words shape reality.
They give form to our emotions and channel their power. That’s why I believe it
is so important to articulate what we feel in response to the murder of Shiri,
Ariel, and Kfir Bibas.
I’ve seen it written
that Ariel loved Batman. I didn’t know him, so I don’t know how deep that love
ran. Did he dress up as Batman often, or was the video we’ve seen of him in his
Batman costume from one Purim? I don’t know.
I do know that the
image of Batman crying for the little boy who is no longer here felt like a
stab in my heart.
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| Painting by Elisabetta Furcht |
Ariel—his name itself carries weight. A combination of "Arieh" (lion) and "El" (God), it is one of the many names of Jerusalem. A powerful name for a little boy who might have dreamed of being a foreign superhero—only to become a symbol for an entire nation.
So much horror has
unfolded. Why, among all the pain, has our nation focused so intensely on this
one family?
If we limit our
emotions to pity or even rage at their murderers, we do a disservice to
ourselves and to the Bibas family. There is more here. Within this terrible
loss, there is also a gift.
Ariel and Kfir were
the youngest hostages taken by the Gazans, but they were not the only child
hostages.
Other babies were
murdered. Rescue teams found families burned alive in an embrace—parents
shielding their children with their own bodies, older siblings covering the
youngest in a desperate attempt to protect them.
We saw Shiri’s terror,
captured on camera. That split second of horror as she found herself alone,
surrounded by the invaders, with no one to help her or her babies. Other Jewish
mothers had that same moment, but we didn’t see them live on TV.
We saw Shiri again on
video, in Gaza, wrapped in a blanket, still clutching her two boys as she was
dragged into captivity. Carrying a four-year-old and a nine-month-old is
difficult even in normal circumstances. How long did she hold them in her arms?
How long before she no longer could?
Now, in death, she
carries them still. They were buried together, forever locked in that embrace.
And Yarden? We saw his
abuse. The beating as he was ripped from his family. The starvation in the
tunnels. His torment when his captors told him that his beloved wife and babies
were dead—and then shoved a camera in his face, forcing him to beg for them to
be returned to him.
Now, we see his
dignity and heroism. In the instructions he gave us—to tell the world what was
done to his babies. In the way he articulates his love for them. In his wonder
and appreciation that our Nation is trying to wrap him in love. And in his
quiet acknowledgment that this enormous love, is not the simple love of his
beloved, the only love he really wants.
The Bibas family
captured our hearts because they are special. But also because they have become
symbols that help us live with our own trauma.
The mind cannot
comprehend the enormity of what we have experienced—what we are still
experiencing. There are not enough tears for all the children. For all the
broken families. For all the survivors struggling not to be swallowed by the
abyss.
But we can cry for
Ariel and Kfir. Little lions who will never grow up. (Kfir is the Hebrew word
for lion cub.)
It is easy to call the
murder of babies evil. The very idea of a grown man choking an infant to death
fills us with revulsion. It is paralyzing to imagine men mutilating the body of
a dead child—to frame the murder in a way that serves their twisted narrative.
The dead child feels no pain. But what does it take for someone to look at the
lifeless body of a baby and still feel that it is necessary and good to smash
it?
We need to think of
Ariel and Kfir because we cannot take into our hearts the evil unleashed on so
many others. The children tortured in front of their parents before being
butchered. The children forced to watch their parents being tortured before
they too were killed. The children found tied together and burned.
The soul screams, and
the mind shuts down. It’s too much. We don’t want to know. We can’t take it all
in.
But these things
happened. And the world needs to know.
That is why Shiri,
Ariel, and Kfir are so important. And Yarden too.
For their family and
friends, they remain their private, individual selves. But for the rest of us,
they are symbols—symbols we desperately need.
They allow us to
grieve. We cry for them while crying for all the others.
They force the world
to see what evil looks like. There is no nuance, no excuses. Babies versus baby
killers is an equation no one can ignore.
Shani Louk, in her
grace and light, dancing at the Nova, contrasted with the hideous image of her
twisted, half-naked body paraded in a pickup truck—men cheering, children
spitting on her—made it impossible to ignore the sickness in Gazan society.
The Bibas family
clarifies this evil further.
Some have attempted to
excuse the horrors Gazans brought to the Nova might as generalized violence of
men against women, an outburst of bloodlust, facilitated by terrorists on drugs
with the opportunity to do whatever they want to the enemy population. The
Bibas family puts the evil in hyperfocus, in a way that is impossible to define
other than what it is - the deliberate destruction of Jewish families. A hatred
so deep that it erases all empathy, making it impossible to see a baby as a
precious form of life. Giving no respect for a mother battling to protect her
cubs. The evil that strangles and mutilates babies is not a fluke in the
system, it is the system. It is a building block in a society that seeks the
destruction of ours.
Batman became a
superhero after a terrible event in his childhood. His pain drove him to want
to prevent others from suffering. He didn’t have any special magical abilities.
He developed tools that enabled him to serve the people of his city, and most
of the time he did it alone.
What a terrible,
all-too-familiar burden.
Shiri and Yarden just
wanted to be parents. Ariel and Kfir just wanted to be themselves—happy,
exploring, growing boys, wrapped in the love of their family.
Who wants to become a
symbol? Particularly not one born in trauma and horror. No one wants to embody
the battle between good and evil, life and death.
But that is what they
have become.
I cannot undo what was
done to them. I cannot ease their suffering.
But I can be grateful
for what they have given us—a way to express the emotions that are too vast for
our small nation to contain. A defining truth, for us and for the world, of
right and wrong, good and evil. The ultimate line that must never be crossed.
Proof that no justification or excuse can ever make it acceptable to allow
monsters to live on our doorstep.
|
"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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