This is a podcast about history, but also about this moment in history.

Today's episode is a special one. Many of you asked about the hostages, about the activism of their families, about their shattering experiences on October 7 and how they have worked to piece their lives back together since.

I can think of no better way to begin to answer these questions than by posing them to our good friend Shaked Haran.

There's no one story of the hostage families. Their experiences vary, their opinions on the war differ. All their stories are powerful and excruciating, and often also unexpectedly inspiring; all are worth hearing.

And Shaked's voice stands out among them for its clarity and courage.

Shaked lost three family members in the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be'eri, including her beloved father Avshalom, or Avshal. Seven more family members, including sister Adi, brother-in-law Tal, three-year-old niece Yahel, eight-year-old nephew Naveh, and 12-year-old cousin Noam, were dragged into Gaza as hostages.

Just two weeks ago, the last family member still held by Hamas, Tal Shoham, was finally released, closing a long and painful chapter in the life of this extraordinary family.

We sat down to talk about that day, about what it feels like to search desperately for your family after a massacre, about finding the strength amid the pain and fear to launch a globe-spanning fight to rescue your loved ones. We looked at Israel's social fractures and at what holds us all together, about a morally confused world and an enemy territory that could still, she believes, flourish if it managed to come out from beneath the shadow of the murderers of her family.

Thank you to Joe and Shira Lieberman for sponsoring this episode in honor of those we lost on October 7th.

Please join me on Patreon to support this project: https://www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected].

A podcast by Haviv Rettig Gur