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.

