Shiri Bibas, and sons Ariel and Kfir, memorialized at Squirrel Hill gathering
'This is for a mother from a mother'
The few children who attended last week’s outdoor Squirrel Hill vigil didn’t speak much. Nestled beside their parents, the young Pittsburghers watched adults embrace, stand silently in the rain and proceed to a small, covered stand to memorialize Shiri Bibas and her infant sons, Ariel and Kfir.
Surrounded by orange balloons, the tented table displayed photographs of the Bibases and rows of yahrzeit candles. For more than an hour on Feb. 26, community members approached the knee-high table, reached for matches or lighters and kindled flames in memory of the slain Israeli mother and her two small children.
Nearly 16 months after their Oct. 7, 2023, abduction by Hamas — Yarden Bibas, Shiri’s husband and the boys’ father was taken separately from his family on that day — the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her redheaded sons were returned to Israel. Following a procession attended by thousands, including a now-released Yarden Bibas, the three deceased Bibases were buried in a single casket.
Squirrel Hill resident Yehudit Dvir, 58, watched the funeral online. Hours later she stood with her daughter and granddaughter on the corner of Murray Avenue and Darlington Road. Sheltered from the rain, Dvir said that organizing the gathering was a way of reclaiming the senselessness surrounding the Bibases’ abduction and death.
“This is unforgivable, to take a mother and two babies alive to Gaza, to let us know that they are alive and to kill them,” Dvir said. “They’re supposed to bring them back alive. They did what they did — OK — now, bring them back alive. It’s a big deal. It’s a very big deal. This is not something we can forget or forgive.”
Several feet away, Helleny Dvir, 28, clutched her daughter Mika Dvir, 3.
“This is for a mother from a mother,” Helleny Dvir said of the memorial. “Our pain for Shiri Bibas and for this whole story is beyond anything that we can compare to. And it’s not just what happened to them. It’s the way it happened to them — the slaughtering, the way they did it is just not human.”
Authorities from the Israel Defense Forces said Ariel and Kfir Bibas were “brutally murdered” by terrorists in late November 2023. The claim, based on forensic evidence and intelligence according to The Times of Israel, refutes Hamas’ assertion that the boys, who would have been 4 years old and 10 months old in November 2023, died in an Israeli airstrike.
Dr. Chen Kugel, director of Israel’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine, said that after Shiri Bibas’ body was returned to Israel, an examination found “no evidence of injuries caused by bombing,” BBC reported.
“Our hearts ache so bad hearing the details but it’s important we hear these details,” Helleny Dvir said. “They’re raw, they’re real, and this happened to our innocent babies just because they were Jewish. They took the innocent of the innocent — the babies, the mothers — and they tore them completely apart, physically, emotionally, and we got to become one, somehow again, as Jewish people come close together.”
While Helleny Dvir shifted between clutching her daughter and hugging attendees, Meredith Brown approached the covered table. Brown, 43, bent down and lit a yahrzeit candle. Her two daughters, ages 10 and 6, stood silently nearby.
The Squirrel Hill resident brought her children to the memorial because it’s “important to remember the family and the community in which we belong,” she said. “We need to remember what happened and we need to be proud as Jews.”
Before arriving at the afternoon gathering, Brown spoke with her daughters about the Bibases and “what is actually happening in Israel” in an age-appropriate way, she said. “I just told them, both of them, that the family was captured by Hamas. And unfortunately they didn’t make it out of captivity, so we were going to honor their memory today.”
Along with explaining what would occur at the outdoor event, Brown offered her children multiple ways to participate, including lighting candles or reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish. She also told her daughters “they could stay silent and just think about the family at this time.”
As she walked with her children down Darlington Road, Brown told the Chronicle that upon reaching home she would talk to her girls about “how we remain strong in the Pittsburgh Jewish community, how we came together in light of the darkness and to always remember the things that we can do to light up the world.”
Days after the gathering, the Pittsburgh City-County Building was lit orange in remembrance of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, following a request from Julie Paris, MidAtlantic regional director of StandWithUs, according to City Councilmember Theresa Kail-Smith.
The elected official declined further comment in order “not to make it a political effort” and to “keep the focus on the victims and their loved ones who are hurting.”
On the afternoon of Feb. 26, Rabbi Daniel Fellman of Temple Sinai called the Bibas children “gingies,” a Hebrew word for redheads.
“These precious young children, they are our own,” he said. “They are part of our holy people. We remember them with love, and we pray that they are at peace in their mother’s arms and surrounded by God’s love.”
Fellman spoke to attendees from a microphone. An attached speaker played wistful music. Rain continued throughout the gathering.
Yehudit Dvir told the Chronicle she brought about 100 yahrzeit candles to the event.
“If I need more I can get more,” she said.
Before the program concluded, additional candles were delivered. PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
comments