(JTA) — TEL AVIV — The mood at Tel Aviv’s upscale Gindi Fashion Mall was divided between anticipation and disbelief on Thursday afternoon, in the wake of news of a hostage deal that could end the Gaza war and bring the remaining hostages home.

At a kiosk across from a Chanel boutique, fruit vendor Amit Bonen said she had learned not to trust good news too quickly. “I have optimism, but it’s filled to the brim with pessimism,” she said. “I won’t believe anything until I see it with my own eyes.”

Her colleague, Rinat, nodded in agreement. “You can’t trust those terrorists,” she said. “Who knows what trick they have up their sleeve?”

But Or, en route to a cosplay event, dismissed the caution. “Why not celebrate?” he said. “The hostages will come home. They’ll leave people in Gaza alone. What’s not to love?”

A few blocks away, Hostages Square looked transformed. For nearly two years it had been a gathering place for families of hostages and their supporters and for vigils marked by grief. On Thursday it was filled with songs that had become the soundtrack of wartime resilience — “Am Yisrael Chai,” “Machshavot Tovot,” “Ve’od Yoter Tov.” Impromptu circles of dance formed. American flags fluttered beside effigies of Donald Trump and handmade posters thanking the American president, who helped broker the agreement. Children leaned over folding tables, coloring “welcome home” notes for returning hostages.

Ariel Vinter, from Jerusalem, led the crowd in singing. The past two years had strengthened her faith, she said, which she leaned on to cope with the loss of her cousins, Ofir Tzarfati check sp and Tchelet Fishbein, who were killed on Oct. 7 at the Nova festival and Be’eri, respectively.

“I haven’t digested what happened to them. I don’t think I ever will,” she said. “But I know the families will only be able to heal when Eviatar and Guy are back,” referring to Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa Dalal, who were with Tzarfati when he was killed and who were taken hostage to Gaza.

Michel Illouz, whose son Guy was abducted from the Nova festival and later confirmed killed in Gaza, harbored no doubts about the news.

“I 100% know we are ending this war,” he said. “Everyone must understand that the only option is by peace and not war. For the Israeli side and Palestinian side.”

He would only find peace, he said, once he saw his son’s body. “I want to touch him. I want to make this closure.”

He added: “From this trauma, from this holocaust, we will have a great future for all our nation,” he added.

“We would never be here right now without him,” referring to Trump.

Nearby, well-wishers lined up to embrace relatives of the hostages. A woman who asked to hug Meirav Gonen, mother of freed hostage Romi Gonen, told her, “All along you were the source of strength for all of us to fight for you.”

Afterward, she told JTA: “They’re so strong. Why shouldn’t we be? It’s a matter of hours now. Nothing else matters. We can finally return to life.”

Gonen said the families were united by a shared determination. “Of course we’re holding our breath,” she said. “But this time it’s different. Everyone is together on this. You can feel it. Everything is aligned for this to happen.”

Her daughter’s release during a January ceasefire had not ended her own sense of obligation for the hostages.

“It’s a hole that hasn’t been filled,” she said. Like others, she credited Trump: “We couldn’t have done this without him.”

Among those taking part in the celebrations was Anat, a founding member of Bo’u, a volunteer movement formed in late 2024 to push for a hostage-release deal.

“For the first time, I feel I can breathe,” she said. “But it was all down to us — the Israeli people. We made Trump understand that most Israelis wanted the war to end — that our values, unlike the government’s, are about responsibility to one another. We were all partners in bringing them home.”

Some people came to the square for the first time. Doron Katz, who was freed from captivity with her daughters in the first hostage deal in November 2023, said she had stayed away until now. “It was too hard before,” she said. “But now, seeing people smiling and dancing — it’s very moving.”

Nechamit, who traveled from Netanya with nine friends, called it “a historic day.” Her friend, Ariella, described the atmosphere simply as “celebratory.”

“We’re ready to give Trump the Nobel Peace Prize for this,” she said.

Nearby, Tova Gohar waved a giant American flag. She said she came to “thank Trump for forcing Israel and the Arab countries into signing the deal. He’s a businessman, he knows how to do deals.”

Activists planned to sustain activities in the square in the coming days, as Israeli lawmakers sign off on the deal and the public awaits the hostages’ return. Prayers will be held in the square on Shabbat, and the public is invited to bring their Friday night dinners to create a communal experience.

Fourteen-year-old Noam Salame, from Karnei Shomron, said he was thinking about what the hostages would experience when they returned.

“I’m just imagining Bar Kupershtein seeing his father speak for the first time,” he said. Bar’s father, Tal, was left unable to speak after a stroke five years ago and has since regained his voice — a recovery he said came from determination to bring his son home, after Bar was abducted from the Nova festival.

“And of Ziv and Gali Berman watching Maccabi Tel Aviv’s ascent in the [Euroleague],” he added, referring to the 27-year-old twins, both avid soccer fans, who were kidnapped by Hamas from Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

The post Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square is transformed by cautious optimism — and gratitude for Trump appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — Jewish organizations across the ideological spectrum offered cautious optimism following the announcement of the first phase of a Gaza peace agreement, expressing profound relief at the planned return of hostages living and dead and tentative hopes that the plan might lead toward lasting regional peace.

As for what such a last peace might look like, only groups that have consistently advocated for a two-state solution offered a specific vision, putting their hopes in a solution that is implicit in the Trump administration’s 20-point peace plan, but which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects adamantly.

Nearly all the organizations noted that the war began with Hamas’s deadly attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and urged “vigilance” that Hamas would uphold its side of any agreement. 

“This development represents a hopeful step toward resolving the conflict, securing the release of all hostages, and establishing the conditions for lasting peace and security in the region,” read a statement by Betsy Berns Korn and William C. Daroff, the chair and CEO, respectively, of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “This moment demands unity, resolve, and the moral clarity to ensure that peace and security endure and every hostage returns home.”

Federations similarly welcomed the deal for its humanitarian implications, with the Jewish Federations of North America saying “our prayers are answered — not completely, for the pain of loss remains — but with the long-awaited promise of healing, renewal, and hope.”

Groups also thanked the Trump administration for brokering the deal. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee said in its statement that it “applauds President Trump and his negotiating team for this tremendous achievement and for working together with Israel to broker this peace plan.”

AIPAC also framed the last two years as an affirmation of the “enduring partnership between the United States and our ally Israel,” despite cracks that showed during the Biden administration and to a lesser extent under Trump. 

A lobbying group that tends to reflect the policies of the sitting Israeli government, AIPAC also spoke in brief of what some are calling “the day after,” saying that the peace deal “creates a tremendous opportunity to forge a better future for Israelis, Palestinians, and people across the Middle East.”

J Street — the advocacy group often described as the progressive counterpart to AIPAC — did not mention the two-state solution in a statement by its president, Jeremy Ben-Ami. But Ben-Ami did urge the parties to take steps toward realizing the “full US-backed 20-point plan — one that ensures Israel’s security, ends Hamas’s reign of terror, delivers a massive surge of humanitarian aid and sets the region on a path toward a comprehensive and permanent peace.”

In the 19th point of its 20-point plan, the White House suggested without making any pledges that “the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognise as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.” And while a number of key European allies recently recognized a Palestinian state, the idea has been effectively stalled and faces formidable obstacles on the ground, including strong opposition by both the current Israeli government and key segments of the Israeli and Palestinian publics. 

Other groups were more explicit in reiterating the two-state solution. The Israel Policy Forum, founded to advance the idea of two states, said it hoped the agreement might pave the way for “rekindled Israel-Arab diplomacy, a reformed Palestinian Authority with new, empowered, and legitimate leadership, an eventual expansion of the Abraham Accords that advances Israel’s integration in the Middle East, and the pursuit of a viable political horizon to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on two states.”

The Reform movement, in a statement signed by the leaders of its rabbinical, congregational and seminary arms, also hoped the ceasefire would create the conditions for renewing a solution which the statement acknowledged “feels remote at this point.” Nevertheless, according to the statement, “a two-state solution in some configuration must remain the worthy, long-term goal for Israelis and Palestinians as they contemplate a future with safety, dignity, and hope for all.”

Further to the left, Jewish groups welcomed the return of the hostages but also reiterated their criticism of Israel’s prosecution of a war whose death toll, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry, surpassed 67,000.  

Partners for Progressive Israel called the agreement “a victory for the hostage families in Israel and their supporters” as well as “the many international bodies who have sought to hold Hamas and this Israeli government accountable for the war crimes perpetrated in the last two years.”

While few right-leaning groups commented on the deal in the hours after its announcement, which also coincided with the end of the first two days of Sukkot, Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi welcomed the news, calling it “a potentially hopeful step toward restoring calm and securing the release of Israeli hostages.” 

RZA-Mizrachi’s president, Steven M. Flatow, whose daughter Alisa Flatow was killed in a suicide bombing near a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip in 1995, also warned that “Hamas’s word is worth little.” He cautioned that any plan’s success “depends entirely on whether Hamas and its supporters can be trusted to abide by their commitments—a lesson history teaches us to approach with clear eyes.”

The post Jewish groups welcome ceasefire plan as a step toward a ‘lasting regional peace’ appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — Jewish author Kyle Lukoff’s latest novel, “A World Worth Saving,” was named one of the finalists for this year’s National Book Awards in the Young People’s Literature category.

The novel, which is aimed for middle-grade readers, features a young Jewish transgender boy who teams up with a golem, a creature from Jewish folklore, to save the world from demons that feed off of pain and suffering, including the one haunting his conversion therapy program.

It is Lukoff’s second National Book Awards finalist nod. In 2021, he was also a finalist in the Young People’s Literature category for “Too Bright to See,” a novel about a transgender boy living in a haunted house.

“I’m shortlisted for the National Book Award!!!! (again). I could not be more thrilled, and am excited to read the other finalists,” wrote Lukoff in a post on Instagram. (He also celebrated the award with a feast of Ashkenazi food.)

Lukoff, who is transgender, told blogger Kyle Ranson-Walsh that the concept behind “A World Worth Saving” first came to him from a librarian friend who messaged him: “You should write a book about a golem that protects trans kids.”

While researching Jewish mythology for the novel, Lukoff, who was born in Skokie, Illinois, and graduated from Barnard College, came across “Spirit Possession in the Jewish Traditions: Case Studies from the Middle Ages to Today” by Matt Goldish.

“I realized that I could stay within Jewish mythology for this story. Everything I needed I could find from that lore,” Lukoff told Ranson-Walsh. “That allowed the book itself to become more deeply Jewish, because I didn’t have to go outside that lane to find ways to make it work.”

Lukoff is also the author of “Call Me Max,” a picture book about a young trans boy that has been banned at several school districts around the United States, as well as “My Little Golden Book About Pride.”

The post In National Book Awards finalist, Jewish trans boy and golem team up to save the world appeared first on The Forward.