PURELY COMMENTARY

4 | SEPTEMBER 19 • 2024 J
N

opinion

Why ‘Slichah’ — ‘Sorry’ — Has Become a
Ubiquitous Catchword Among Anguished Israelis
F

or many Israelis and their sup-
porters, “sorry” seems to be
the right word for the hardest
times.
At a vigil in Jerusalem remembering
Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-
Polin and five other Israel hostages
whose bodies were
recovered the day
before, mourners wrote
slichah — “sorry” in
Hebrew — on placards.
At the funeral that
day of Eden Yerushalmi,
one of those killed, a
family member held a
sign saying “Slichah Eden” next to her
body.
At a vigil in New York’s
Columbus Circle that night, another
sign: “Slichah. I’m so sorry that the
world failed you.”
And at Goldberg-Polin’s funer-
al, Israeli President Isaac Herzog apol-
ogized for Israel’s failure to free the
captives held by Hamas. “
As a father
and as the president of the State of
Israel, I want to say how sorry I am,
how sorry I am that we didn’t protect
Hersh on that dark day, how sorry I
am that we failed to bring him home,”
he said, in English, after first speaking
in Hebrew.
In those Hebrew remarks, Herzog
used the word “slichah,” which in
recent days has become another
familiar phrase in a nearly yearlong
crisis that already has spawned its
own vocabulary.
The word, like its English coun-
terpart, can convey a range of mean-
ings — from a casual “excuse me” to
a profound request for forgiveness.
Appearing numerous times in the
Hebrew Bible, the s-l-ch root is related
to personal forgiveness.
In Elul, the Hebrew month is
seen as a spiritual run-up to Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur, wor-
shippers begin adding “selichot” —

penitential prayers — to their daily
prayers.
Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie of New
York’s Lab/Shul congregation saw and
heard the phrase “slichah” repeatedly
when he attended a mass demonstra-
tion in Tel Aviv calling on the Israeli
government to reach a hostage deal.
“The impulse for personal remorse
and repair is built into the infra-
structure” of Jewish tradition and
culture, he said, citing the communal
prayers for forgiveness said during the
High Holidays. “We feel a collective
responsibility for problems and
solutions.”
Lau-Lavie said his current trip
to Israel inspired him to launch
throughout Elul a “public account-
ability project” in which individuals
preparing for the High Holidays can
ask themselves, “How are we part of
the bigger problem?”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu used the word “slichah” in
an apology delivered to the parents
of one of the six slain hostages, Alex
Lobanov. “I would like to tell you
how much I regret and ask forgive-
ness [in Hebrew, mevakesh slichah]
for not succeeding in bringing Sasha
back alive,” Netanyahu told Lobanov’s

parents, according to a readout from
his office, using their son’s nickname.
Many noted it was the first time
Netanyahu had apologized to a hos-
tage family.
What makes “slichah” unusual in
the case of the hostage vigils is that it
is being said by members of the public
who seemingly have no direct respon-
sibility for the prosecution of the war,
or for the military and diplomatic
efforts to free the hostages.
Michal Kravel-Tovi, an associate
professor of socio-cultural anthropol-
ogy at Tel Aviv University, says the
impulse to apologize may be in part
an expression of survivor’s guilt by
Israelis who are able to go about their
daily lives while others fight in Gaza,
mourn their dead or have family and
friends still held hostage.
“I think it is increasingly linked
with the hostage crisis: how we get
used to it, continue with our life …
while others are dying there. People
apologize for being privileged to not
be a (hostage) family member,” she
said.
Kravel-Tovi is the co-editor of a
forthcoming book on phrases that
came into wide circulation since Oct.
7, including ein milim (there are no

words [to convey our grief]) and
beyachad nenatzeach, or “together we
will win.”
She also suggests that mourners
and protesters are saying “slichah” out
of frustration with a government that
hasn’t done enough to bring home the
hostages or didn’t protect its citizens
on Oct. 7. Under these conditions, she
said, it is civilians who “are the ones
to be the moral voice and pragmatic
actor instead of the state, are the ones
to say sorry — sorry for not doing
enough or being unable to sufficiently
succeed.”
Lau-Lavie, who grew up in Israel,
noted that the current expressions
of “slichah” are largely coming from
an ostensibly secular segment of the
Israeli public and not from the reli-
gious Zionist movement or the haredi,
or ultra-Orthodox, community.
“I was talking with a moderately
right-wing taxi driver who told me
the protests show ‘weakness,’” said
Lau-Lavie. According to the driver,
Israelis need to apologize because “we
are not strong enough.”
Netanyahu’s critics, meanwhile,
insist he hasn’t taken responsibility
either for the security lapses of Oct.
7 or the lack of a ceasefire deal that

Andrew
Silow-Carroll
JTA.org

CHAIM GOLDBERG/FLASH90

YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90

ABOVE: Images of slain hostages and a sign reading “sorry” in Hebrew are seen at a rally near the prime minister’s official
residence in Jerusalem, Sept. 3, 2024. RIGHT: The hand of a protester at a rally calling for the release of Israelis held kidnapped
by Hamas in Gaza outside the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem, Sept. 1, 2024.