If there was one image burned into our collective minds from the harrowing footage that emerged after October 7th, it was Shiri Bibas clutching her two children. Ariel, age 4, and Kfir, 9 months old. A blanket thrown around them. Her face, pure horror. She was being marched into Gaza, and ultimately, to her death. I need to stop and take a breath while writing this – this image is so hauting. Shiri and her sons were murdered just six weeks into captivity. Her husband, Yarden Bibas was released on February 1, 2025, not knowing who from his family was still alive. Shiri’s parents were murdered on October 7th as well, burned alive in their home on Kibbutz Nir Oz. All that remained of Shiri’s immediate family was her sister, Dana Sitton.
Dana’s parents, sister, and nephews, murdered. Her brother-in-law, held hostage for sixteen months. And yet, after losing nearly everyone, Dana made a choice that defies comprehension: she enlisted in the IDF reserves.
Just weeks ago, Dana stood in Rafah wearing her IDF uniform, lighting her parents’ chanukkiyah, the menorah that somehow survived the fire that consumed their home and their lives on that terrible day. It was the eighth night of Hanukkah, and Dana shared: “This menorah is among the very few items that survived the fire in my parents’ home,” she said. “We’re standing together and lighting it here on the soil of Gaza. I look at the halo of these candles and imagine the wind carrying their light and spreading it throughout the Strip, so that all our enemies will see it and know that this light cannot be extinguished.”
Where does a person find the strength to do this? To take the charred remnants of her murdered parents’ home and turn them into a declaration of light in the very place her family was destroyed?
Every Friday night, as Shabbat begins, Jews around the world sing a prayer called Lecha Dodi—”Come, My Beloved”—welcoming the Sabbath like a bride. The refrain goes:
Embedded in this 16th-century poem are two verses that come directly from the prophet Isaiah:
First, the verses from Lecha Dodi:
Hitnari me’afar kumi, livshi bigdei tifartech ami—Shake yourself from the dust, arise, put on your garments of splendor, my people
Uri uri shir daberi, kevod Hashem alayich niglah—Awake, awake, utter a song; the glory of the Lord is revealed upon you
Here are the full verses from Isaiah that speak with startling clarity to Dana’s story:
Isaiah spoke these words to a devastated Jerusalem. The city lay in ruins. The people were captive. Everything they had built was ash. And yet the prophet doesn’t offer gentle comfort. He issues a command: Uri uri—Awake, awake. Hitnari me’afar kumi—Shake off the dust and stand up.
The word me’afar means “from the dust” or “from the ashes.” Dana’s parents’ home was reduced to ash. It took two weeks to find and identify their remains because the house burned to the ground. When Isaiah tells Jerusalem to shake herself from the dust, he’s speaking to a place that has been consumed by fire, destroyed beyond recognition. But the command isn’t to mourn forever. It’s kumi—arise, stand up.
Dana arose. She enlisted. She put on the uniform of the Israel Defense Forces and returned to Gaza—not as a victim, not as a bereaved sister, but as a soldier. Isaiah says, “Livshi uzekh”—clothe yourself with strength. Dana clothed herself with strength. Literally. The IDF uniform became her garment of tiferet, her garment of splendor.
The prophet calls Jerusalem “shviyah bat Tzion”—captive Daughter of Zion. Shiri and her babies were captives. They were the literal captive daughters and sons of Zion, held in Gaza and murdered there. Yarden was held captive for over a year. And in Isaiah’s vision, the call to Jerusalem is not just to remember the captives but to break free from the chains—hitpat’chi mosrei tzavarekh—free yourself from the bonds around your neck.
Dana did exactly this. She refused to be bound by grief, by trauma, by the natural human response to curl inward after such loss. She broke free from those chains and walked back into Gaza carrying her parents’ chanukkiyah. The menorah that survived the fire. She brought the light back to the place of darkness.
Isaiah 52 is about redemption and return. It’s about Jerusalem being rebuilt, about captives being freed, about a people who refuse to stay in the dust. Dana brought her parents’ menorah—the symbol of their destroyed home, their murdered lives—back to Gaza and lit it there. She returned light to the place that tried to extinguish it. She stood in Rafah and said, “This light cannot be extinguished.”
Uri uri. Hitnari me’afar kumi.
Awake, awake. Shake off the dust. Stand up.
