I cannot celebrate independence when my heart is with the hostages in Gaza

Last year, I spent Israel’s 76th Independence Day as a hostage of Hamas. I marked the day, proud of a state founded to ensure the safety of the Jewish people—yet I was under threat, living in fear. I had nothing to celebrate. Even now, as I sit at home on the eve of the state’s 77th Independence Day, in the country I so dearly love, I still have nothing to celebrate.

I’m home—but my heart is still there.

I can walk, eat, and breathe. I can hug my mother, hang out with friends, eat what I want, whatever my body needs. But my heart still won’t let me feel a true sense of independence—a sense of freedom and control over my life—while my friends remain in chains underground. While so many families still cry out for their loved ones. Now, I’m crying out for them—for those who can’t be heard—who, without them, we cannot begin to heal.

Seventy-seven years ago, the Jewish state was established to help the Jewish people recover after six million Jews were murdered in Europe, after the horrors endured by Jews in North Africa and South America. That was our first revival.

Now is the time for a new one.

We must unite to save those we can, to prevent further loss and death, to fulfill the very purpose for which this country was founded: to keep the Jewish heart beating, and the people safe.