18 | DECEMBER 21 • 2023 J
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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