18 | DECEMBER 21 • 2023 J
N
E
lla Ben Ami woke up in her home
at Kibbutz Be’eri in southern
Israel near the Gaza border to
the sound of alarms. Warnings about
incoming missiles were not uncommon,
so she wasn’t too worried as she and her
brother made their way to a safe room.
A half-hour later, a text on a kibbutz
WhatsApp group told her that Hamas
terrorists had invaded her parents’ house
adjacent to the kibbutz fence. Shortly
after that, another post showed her
father, Ohad, being captured, barefoot
and in his pajamas. Her mother, Raz,
was also taken hostage.
Yair Moses understands her anguish.
He was born and raised on Kibbutz
Nir Oz, also near the Gaza border. He
now lives in Gedera, where he works
as a computer specialist for Teva
Pharmaceuticals.
After the first alarms from Gaza at
6:30 a.m., he called his parents, who
are divorced. Both told him they were
OK. But at 10 a.m. he heard about the
terrorist invasion near the border.
He tried to call his parents again but
got no response. His father, Gadi Moshe
Moses, and his mother, Margalit Berta
Moses, had both been taken into Gaza
as hostages, and his father’s partner,
Efrat Katz, had been killed on the way
to Gaza.
Ben Ami and Moses were in Detroit
to serve as honorary lamplighters for the
annual Menorah in the D ceremony to
mark the start of Chanukah. The event
took place Dec. 7 in Campus Martius
in Downtown Detroit. Ben Ami was
accompanied by her brother, and Moses,
who is married and has three children,
by his son, Erez, 16.
Both mothers were released by Hamas
— Margalit Moses on Nov. 24 and Raz
Ben Ami just three days before Ella Ben
Ami left Israel for Detroit.
Ella Ben Ami said her mother is ill
from a longtime health condition and
was very thin and weak when she was
released. After a short hospitalization,
she is receiving outpatient treatment in
Tel Aviv.
RAISING AWARENESS
Ben Amis mother’s first question
after being reunited with her children
was, “Where’s Dad?” She insisted her
daughter make the Detroit trip to raise
awareness of the plight of the remaining
Israeli visitors plead for release of hostages
— including their parents.
Honorary Chanukah
Lamplighters
BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Ella Ben Ami (center),
her brother (far left) and Yair
Moses (far right), standing next to his
son, join a Pistons representative
on the court Dec. 6.
OUR COMMUNITY