Every hostage release is emotional for the Jewish community, but Thursday’s events, in which three Israelis and five Thai nationals were released from Hamas custody in exchange for 110 convicted Palestinian prisoners, were particularly poignant for Ronald and Edward Bakalarz.
Their cousin, Agam Berger, is now safe in Israel after being imprisoned in Gaza for 482 days.
“How can you describe that emotion?” Edward Bakalarz stated as we watched videos on social media of Agam reconciling with her family.
“God bless ‘em, my only hope is that she can recuperate,” Ronald Bakalarz added.
It’s personal to these brothers. Seeing their relative reunited with family and friends is something they’ve been hoping and praying for since October 7, 2023. We met at their synagogue, the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center.
I asked Edward what he thought when he saw the Agam films being released.
“Cry, that’s the first thing that came to my mind, actually, right now, just a lot of excitement that she’s free, concern about that year and a half affected her life, the impact it had on our family,” he said through tears.
The reunion scenes are full of excitement and relief.
“On the one hand, a lot of emotion, a lot of happiness for the family, on the other hand, I thought it was disgusting the way that they paraded her and all the other hostages who were released, making an absolute show of this whole thing,” Ronald Bakalarz said.
Hamas might have simply moved the hostages into Red Cross vans. Instead, they encircled them with armed, masked men in uniforms, effectively forcing them to run a gauntlet to escape. They even held a ceremony where the prisoners smiled and waved on stage.
“So humiliating,” Edward said as we watched the videos of those scenes.
Hamas was subjecting the hostages to one more round of psychological torture. It enhances the joy of returning home. For each hostage released, the synagogue attaches a yellow ribbon to its massive “Bring Them Home Now” dog-tag installation. Ronald and Edward did the honours today, with eight new ribbons added, 82 more to go, and the possibility of a lasting cease-fire looming.
“The hope is that we can end the war, the reality is that it’s quite obvious that Hamas is not interested in ending it,” Ronald Bakalarz said.
Ronald says he’s travelled to Israel multiple times since October 7 to be with his family and support them as much as possible, and that everyone is praying for the remainder of the hostages to return home soon.
