We Were the Lucky Ones
9 min read
Zeitchik is doing whatever she can to secure their release, clinging to hope and her vision of future peace.
When Alana Zeitchik woke up in her apartment in Brooklyn on October, 7, she quickly learned the news about what was happening in Israel.
There had been a massacre at the Nova music festival.
Israel was under attack.
Hamas had captured hostages and taken them back to Gaza.
She frantically checked her group chat with her cousins, Sharon Cunio and Danielle Alony. Sharon, her husband David, and their 3-year-old twin daughters Emma and Yuli lived in Kibbutz Nir Oz, which was two miles from the Gaza border. Danielle, a single mother, was visiting for Shabbat with her 5-year-old daughter Amelia.
Alana knew the red alerts – which told residents that missiles were coming and to find shelter – were sounding off in Kibbutz Nir Oz starting at 7:30 that morning. This was common.
“Usually we hear about the red alerts in the cousins group chat,” said Alana. “Sharon would typically chime in and say something. But she wasn’t there to say anything. I knew it was different this time.”
Slowly, Alana heard the horrifying details. She called her aunt, who was inconsolable. She’d talked to Sharon hours earlier, who said she was going into the bomb shelter because of the red alerts. Sharon and her family knew that things were not normal and getting worse because they could hear Hamas terrorizing their neighbors’ homes.
Sharon, Emma and Yuli
They realized that the terrorists were setting the homes on fire. Smoke began entering their home, as well as the bomb shelter, so they had to get out… even though they knew Hamas was waiting for them. Sharon was on the phone with her aunt as everything was happening, and her last words before they got disconnected were, “We’re probably not going to get out of this, we love you,” around noon Israel time.
“I was in shock,” said Alana. “I was told that they’re missing but there is no blood in the house. We just didn’t know where they are. We’d seen all the horrors that were happening. We didn’t know what it meant.”
With a pit in her stomach, all Alana could do was wait. She invited her brother Liam, who lives nearby, over to watch the news and she sat by her phone.
While she was looking at clips of the attack on TikTok, she spotted them: David, Sharon and one of the twins. They were being loaded on the back of a Hamas truck.
“My heart jumped,” Alana said. “In that moment, I didn’t know what I wanted to be true. We didn’t really know much after that.”
Alana protesting
She spent the next few days in anguish, obsessively checking the news and talking to her family members, many of whom are also in Israel. She held out hope that they’d find something out.
“The uncertainty of it all has simply been crushing,” she said.
On October 9, Alana, who visits Israel regularly to spend time with her loved ones there, shared an Instagram post about her missing family. It quickly gained steam, and she talked to all the major outlets including CNN, MSNBC, Fox, CBS, about it. She also visited the United Nations with her brother Liam to urge ambassadors to take action and delivered a petition signed by 86 Nobel laureates demanding that Hamas release the kidnapped children. A former media professional, she is now advocating for her family full-time.
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“I’ve had a very long career in media, and just a couple of days before October 7, I quit my job,” she said. “I was seeking a greater purpose for my career and the rest of my life. Then, when October 7 happened, I was unemployed and available. There was this weird divine timing of it all that put me in this positive position for my family.”
Alana also wrote a heartbreaking piece in the New York Times op-ed section about feeling isolated from friends during this time.
“I feel loneliest when I scroll through Instagram and see friends and acquaintances, Jews and non-Jews alike, reposting a protest image calling for a cease-fire from Jewish Voice for Peace in between their fall foliage photos,” she wrote. “These are the same people who watch my stories but who have not once shared the faces of my 3-year-old cousins or demanded the release of the hostages, despite my increasingly desperate cries for help and humanity. The silence is suffocating.”
It's been a painful reckoning, but Alana is trying to concentrate on the good that’s come out of this, including the chance to share her family’s story with the media as well as the support she’s received.
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“I’m evaluating how valuable some of those relationships are time at this time and focusing more of my energy on those who are rallying around me and lifting me up,” she said.
Liam is posting “Kidnapped” posters all around his neighborhood in Williamsburg; Alana joined him a few weeks ago to help.
“They all got ripped down,” she said. “He needs to keep putting them up, and I support him of course. I find it all to be quite heinous and really perplexing to me as to why people would do it, but I try not to focus my time and energy on it. I am not particularly fond of the ‘name and shame’ trend because I think hate breeds more hate. My end goal is peace. At the same time, I do think people should have consequences and be held accountable for their actions.”
Though the Israeli government is in contact with Alana’s family members in Israel, the day of October 30 was the first time they heard anything about the ones being held hostage. Danielle showed up in a Hamas propaganda video; in it, she looks gaunt and pale, her eyes sunken in. Along with two other Israeli women, she was likely forcibly told to say that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed them.
“Our only proof of life is this propaganda,” Alana said.
Hamas propaganda video: Danielle is in the middle.
Daily, Alana is posting photos of her captive family members and sharing personal details about them. She and her family started an Instagram account called Bring Our Family Home, which includes updates about the hostages and Alana’s media appearances. It has already amassed 8,000 followers and many supportive comments.
“I get many messages daily, not all from Jewish people, but a lot, and there are obviously a lot of events, rallies and such,” she said. “I find it hard to participate in a lot of those things. We’re working with StandWithUs and Jews of New York. I do feel supported by the Jewish community overall. That’s the place I feel safest.”
Alana believes it’s very important to share details about her family members, to humanize them to the world.
Danielle is the oldest of all the cousins and like a big sister. She is a natural nurturer and very maternal.
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“She gives the best hugs, and she is the person always in the kitchen rummaging around, feeding you, and never sitting down, whether it’s her house or not,” Alana said. “It’s her place in the family to care for everyone else. That’s what I imagine she is doing now in Gaza: taking care of everyone around her.”
Sharon is like Alana’s little sister.
“She is funny and sarcastic and has quite the sense of humor,” Alana said. “She likes to keep me humble. She is always bringing me back down to earth. She is optimistic and has hopes and dreams.”
Alana called Sharon’s husband David a “kind and gentle soul. My family in general including everyone in Israel is warm and generous and has a lot of love to give. Sharon speaks the best English out of any one in our family. It’s how she was able to connect so well with us in the U.S. She was here in August. I was just doing her hair, and a little over a month later, that awful video of her being captured came out.”
Sharon and David’s children, Emma and Yuli, the 3-year-olds, are “happy toddlers and such smiley girls,” said Alana. “They love each other. There is a really cute video going around of them hugging and kissing each other. Their family unit is so sweet. David grew up on the kibbutz. He has a twin brother and older brother, and his younger brother was also taken hostage.”
#I envision a world in which I spend a lot more time advocating for peace. More than ever, the end goal needs to be peace.
Danielle’s daughter, 5-year-old Amelia, is “a vibrant, clever, and smart little girl,” Alana said. “She is the first grandchild for my aunt. She is a little star. She wants everyone to look at her. She puts costumes on for us and shows them off. She is very attached to her mother.”
Alana is expanding her work, going to different Jewish communities and speaking about her family members.
“Hopefully I will get some good hugs from Jewish moms,” she said. “I am very receptive to hugs at this time.”
She’s trying to comfort herself by taking breaks from the news, walking her dog and doing yoga.
“I’ve had some great Shabbat dinners and more one-on-one time with friends and family in a way that refills my cup,” she said.
Along with the release of her family members, she hopes that this awful period in Israeli history will eventually lead to good things. Despite her challenging circumstances, she still holds out faith that it could happen.
“The Israeli people cannot live like this, and neither can the Palestinian people, with all this suffering,” she said. “Once our family is returned home, I envision a lot of my time will be spent advocating for the people of Israel — not just the land of Israel — the people. That’s what I am most connected to, the people. I would like to see the people of Israel represented in a different way. I envision a world in which I spend a lot more time advocating for peace. More than ever, the end goal needs to be peace.”
Alana, my heart is with you and your family. We are all praying that they and all of the other hostages should come home safely. This waiting must be so excruciating. I'm so sorry for what you and your family have been through.
This story is heartbreaking, but PLEASE could you always end with a list of family members with their mothers' Hebrew names so we can pray for them in the best possible way. If you include ages and relationships, this helps to make our prayers even more intense. Thank you and besorot tovot.
Thank you for speaking out and humanising your family. Your anguish and distress comes through. Please use your media expertise to put the Israeli side of the story forward. There are too many false narratives by Hamas and the Palestinian position. We pray for your family’s safe return. A message from South Africa
I was given the name of a hostage to pray for and learn Torah in their merit. The name I was given was "Amelia bas Daniella." I decided that although I know nothing about her, I will bear her in mind and pray for her health and return.
Now, I have tears streaming down my face as I read your article and see that you wrote about her - Amelia bas Danielle. Thanks to you, I am now praying for someone that has a face, an identity, a life that I beg will be spared and given a future free from fear and full of healing.
My son is that age, and Hashem guided me to your article so I can pray with greater fervor and feel our nation's pain more deeply and personally. May He bring this sweet child home - along with all those who are suffering in Gaza.
thanks for ensuring that we are very aware of what is going on and the need for peace, unfortunately we do not seem to have the answers that will bring peace about, but at least we have the assurance that in the end God will give us peace in his/her/our world.
Thank you Alana for letting us to get to know a little about your family. I now have a specific family to pray for !!!!
I cry tears reading this story and many others and I am not Jewish, I have no relatives held hostage and I am still in pain over the invasion and massacre of Israelis of October 7 th.
I would like Alana to know that many other people such as myself are focused on the safe return of all of those hostages kidnapped. I am praying for this everyday. I hope my prayers add to the collective whole to bring them home.
Gil - you are blind. The walled area of Gaza is only walled off because of the repeated attacks suffered by Israel by Hamas TERRORISTS. Gazans could have had a beautiful sea-side paradise, but instead created are living in a seething pit of dispare because of Hamas. The people of Gaza suffer under the "leadership" of TERRORIST who see their people as martyrs for the cause of ridding the world of Jews and taking their land. Gazans need to rise up against their own leadership - who are the oppressors of Gaza. They see no improvement in life because all their resources are diverted to the HAMAS war machine. Pease will come when the Gazan people shed themselves of their shameful overlord.
As awful as the hostages may be, Israel is holding thousands of Palestinian, prisoners hostage languishing and awful disgusting prisons
I wish Israel and all those that support it wake up to the fact that Israel is the problem first
by occupation, and then, by all the other products of the occupation, such as collective punishment, House demolitions apartheid-like Situation, constant land grabs and endure pogroms by Zionist Jews How about them ? shouldn’t we have compassion for them?
Gil it is so painful to see your response to this article! If you knew a thing about the actual Israel - rather than the skewed Zionist”idea you clearly have imbibed - you would never say such things. The occupation idea is a FICTION drummed up by the same sore losers who are blatantly calling for the murder of Jews across the world in the name of Palestinian freedom. Israel is a sovereign state created by international consensus. That’s not occupation! Palestinians got their own land during that same international agreement but that wasn’t enough for them. Nothing short of judenrein is their motto. Calling for the murder of Jews across the world is straight up genocide, Gil. Israel has a representative govt and 30%Arabs xians you name it. No Apartheid ANYWHERE 😖
Chana
I understand what you’re saying, and you a certain extent you have a point, however, we must stop lying to ourselves. We know that we took Palestinian land their land from them to create our country. That’s the bottom line, if we’re going to be honest with ourselves, and could you bring them for Not Accepting partition why would they? Why would they give up their land for strangers? That’s who we are instead of being brutal. We should be grateful.
was not their land was english domination stop your lies
Gil,
I'd like your thoughts on this article:
https://www.israeladvocacy.net/knowledge/the-truth-of-how-israel-was-created/israel-stole-palestinian-land/
If you believe the facts portrayed here to be accurate, I'd like a public apology and acknowledgement of ignorance (its ok to make mistakes, it happens to us all). What is truly courageous, is to admit that you have made a mistake so that we can all move on from these fallacies once and for all. One Jew at a time.
Gil, if you are reading this, man up and counter.
Gil, It wasn't their land ! In the sense of land "belonging" to someone that you mean, the land "belonged" to the invader British Empire, before that it ""belonged" to the Ottoman Turks, and before that to the invader Xians, and before that to the invader Romans and Greek-Syrians, who invadedIsrael , massacred all the Jews, exiled us and mowed our cities to dust to build their empire on.WE have been trying to get back ever since - peacefully, NOT WITH bloody massacres. In the sense of "belonging" I'd wager that the land you yourself live on was invaded and subsequently settled before you arrived but no one other than the sore-sport Arabs is out there claiming you are a foul settler land-grabber of YOUR country. Why would they (the "Palis") accept partition? simple!!! A good life!