Yom Kippur Fast Makes Man Wonder If Hostages In Gaza Ever Feel This Hungry

"I almost went to the kitchen and opened the fridge, like six times."

Ramat HaSharon, October 1 - The lack of a nighttime meal in the hours past the onset of the Day of Atonement has hit a local resident hard, family members and acquaintances reported this evening, as he was heard to muse aloud that he thinks he knows what the Israeli captives of Hamas are going through now.

Itzik Bar, 44, resolved this year, amid the elevated national solidarity surrounding the October 7th War, to strengthen his connection his people by adopting certain traditional practices, among them the fast day of Yom Kippur. From just before sundown on Wednesday to after nightfall on Thursday, Jewish tradition calls for abstaining from food and drink, among other pleasures - and Bar will attempt the feat for the first time, having been raised in a staunchly secular, even anti-religious, family; until the war erupted in 2023, he had felt no need to raise his own family with anything but the most token trappings of the Jewish way of life, lest any of his children stray from the straight and narrow path of non-religion. However, the broad sense among Israelis, and among Jews in general, since that October 7th, that they must stand united as a people, has sparked a renaissance of adherence to Jewish practice even among the most hardened atheists - less as an acceptance of religious doctrine and more as an expression of unity with the symbols and culture of the Jewish People.

"I almost went to the kitchen and opened the fridge, like six times," the father of three recalled. "Each time I had to remind myself I'm not eating till tomorrow night, if I can manage it. I hope I can manage it. I've never fasted before. It makes me think, maybe the hostages can identify with my situation. Skipping supper is tough."

"I hope it doesn't affect how I sleep," he added. "I hope it doesn't screw up how I feel tomorrow."

Several members of the Bar family voiced intentions to attend synagogue services for Yom Kippur; Itzik has not felt that pull, but allowed that on future Days of Atonement, he might feel such a pull, assuming the trend toward maintaining Jewish culture and identity continues.

"I used to go biking on the empty highways," he acknowledged. "Somehow that felt wrong last year, and it still feels wrong this year. So I sat at home last Yom Kippur and read books about the Holocaust. Did you know in Auschwitz, they didn't get supper, either? I could really go for some supper."

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