Jacqui Vital has a simple message for the anxious families of the 48 remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza, who are set to be released this week: “I’m glad for them.” But despite the joy and celebration of the long-awaited truce between Israel and Hamas, Vital’s own work in Canada is incomplete. Vital, along with the other families of the eight Canadians murdered on Oct. 7, is still pushing the Canadian government to do more to hold terrorist supporters in this country accountable for their actions.

Vital’s daughter Adi Vital-Kaploun, 33, was murdered in her kibbutz safe room on Oct. 7. Terrorists carried her two small boys into Gaza. A neighbour who was with the boys helped them escape to safety the next day. Earlier this week, on the two-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre, the families wrote to Prime Minister Mark Carney, asking to meet in person: not only to tell him Adi’s story, but to get him to show the same level of compassion for Canadian citizens who were killed as she feels Ottawa has shown to the Palestinians in Gaza.

Vital, an Ottawa native, engaged in several meetings with the former prime minister Justin Trudeau. But now they feel slighted by Carney, who has not made time for them since his election in March.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, we speak with Jacqui Vital in Jerusalem about the mood in Israel during this heady time, and how she’s navigating the second Yarhzeit of her daughter’s death.

Transcript

Ellin Bessner: Those are sounds from the hostage square in Tel Aviv on Thursday, with people singing and dancing and wearing Israeli flags as capes, reacting with joy to the deal brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump and the Arab states. A deal that should see a ceasefire in place by this Friday. Then all the remaining 48 Israeli hostages, or their remains, returned, likely beginning Monday or Tuesday. Canadian Jacqui Vital has been monitoring these long-awaited developments from her home in Jerusalem. She says she’s glad for the families who’ve waited so long to be reunited with their kidnapped loved ones, those still alive after more than 730 days, and for the others to give them a proper burial. 

Vital has some experience with what these families have been going through. On October 7, 2023, her two young grandsons were also kidnapped into Gaza, taken from the safe room of their home in Kibbutz Holit after Hamas first killed their mother, Adi. Adi was 33 years old. She’d fought off the attackers and shot and killed one of them, but nobody knew what had happened to her for a few days until searchers located her body under a bed, booby-trapped. The two boys were freed within hours and reunited with their dad who had survived, although four-year-old Negev was shot in the foot and needed surgery. Adi and the boys all had Canadian passports and were regular visitors to Canada. This is why Jacqui Vital and the families of the eight Canadian victims published a letter this week on Oct. 7 to the Prime Minister reminding him that amidst all the attention being paid to the latest hostage deal, the Canadian government has a duty to remember its own victims and hold those who killed them accountable.

Jacqui Vital: I’m talking about the eight Canadians. First of all, they need to know about us. Never mind there’s 1,200 of them, but they’re eight Canadian citizens. Negev and Eskol (her grandsons) are Canadian citizens and they don’t know! They really don’t know. So that’s my mission.

Ellin Bessner: I’m Ellin Bessner and this is what Jewish Canada sounds like for Friday, October 10, 2025. Welcome to North Star, a podcast of The Canadian Jewish News and made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation.

The letter from the families of the eight Canadians asks for a meeting with Prime Minister Carney, who the group’s lawyer, Brandon Silver, says hasn’t even sent condolences to any of them and hasn’t met with any of them either since he took office in March eight months ago after Justin Trudeau stepped down. Trudeau held several warm meetings with the hostage families while he was Prime Minister. But that didn’t prevent the families from suing the Canadian government last year, with the help of CIJA, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, after Ottawa resumed its funding for the UN Relief Agency for Palestine, UNWRA, even though Israel said some employees took part in the October 7th attack. That case is still ongoing in Federal Court.

The families now have other things to ask of Carney. They want him to bring in sanctions against Hamas’s leaders and freeze the assets. And also to go after the networks which help that terrorist group raise funds here in Canada. And the RCMP, they say, should prosecute any guilty Iranian officials living here, using war crimes laws, since Iran armed and trained Hamas.

To find out more and hear the mood in Israel, we’re joined by Jacqui Vital from Jerusalem, to talk about the letter to the PM and the solemn anniversary of her daughter’s death.

Welcome to the CJN.

Jacqui Vital: Thank you.

Ellin Bessner: Well, it’s an honour to speak to you. We’re speaking as the news is changing so rapidly. Hopefully, God willing, that’ll all go well. When you are listening to all these developments, how is it sitting with you and your family?

Jacqui Vital: To tell you the truth, I didn’t listen to anything. I turned on the TV this morning. I heard the news. I saw the headlines that there’s a deal and I saw a few of the hostage parents being interviewed and they’re all just beaming and crying. And then I was out of the house all day, so I didn’t hear anything else.

I’m glad for them. It’s not going to change my life, it’s not. But I’m glad. I’m glad for them because I know, I know I only had three days of thinking that Adi was kidnapped, and I couldn’t touch my neck because it was so tense. So I don’t know how they lived 732 days like that. I don’t know. Like what are they? Never mind their kids. How are they?

I read a post last night. Someone else from Kibbutz Holit, who was murdered, Chaim Katzman, and his mother wrote this morning. She said, “Oh, I woke up to this great news, but can’t really be happy because I’m preparing for a Yahrzeit.” We’re both having our memorial ceremonies next Friday. Adi and Chaim were two doors away from each other.

Ellin Bessner: So you were at a Kibbutz memorial, not at Holit, but a memorial for Holit, just within the last day. What was that, and maybe tell us a bit about that?

Jacqui Vital: Well, the people from Holit, you still can’t live on Holit. Until recently, it was still a military zone. So they couldn’t even do anything in terms of rebuilding or whatever. They’re working very hard and their goal is to move back by July 26. All the houses that were burned were torn down, of course, and new ones have to be built. Some of the houses will be renovated. I know that half of these houses were torn down. Half was untouched, believe it or not, because the terrorists came in from the back, from the porch, and went straight for the safe room. So the front door and the front of the house were untouched completely. So all the stuff that was a mess is gone, and her husband will get a new home.

No one expects him to go and live in that house again. I mean, he wouldn’t anyways, but. So at this ceremony last night, we were at the ceremony last year also. And last year a family member spoke about each of the fallen. And this year it was a friend who spoke about each of the different members of the kibbutz who were murdered. There were 15 of them, including two Thai workers and two of their Bedouin workers who were killed in captivity.

So one of Adi’s high school friends, one of her very best friends, wrote, it wasn’t a monologue, but sort of like. And she just told stories about how much she misses Adi and some of the silly things that they used to do together. I was crying and laughing at the same time because she just touched so many parts of Adi’s life. 

And then they sang Hatikvah. Oh, and someone, actually, we didn’t even know he was doing this–Adi wrote a poem on July 23rd that’s also on her headstone–And we know of three different musicians who have composed music to this poem. And last night someone from the kibbutz played his version.

Ellin Bessner: And were you and Yaron (Adi’s father) the only members of the family or did other people come too?

Jacqui Vital: No, no, just the two of us. My kids have a hard time dealing with all of this. If you could read my son’s Facebook, he’s just heartbroken. He was after Adi in line and he was very close to her and she was his mentor and, yeah, it just, it hurts him so much.

Ellin Bessner: And did the kids, the grandchildren and your son-in-law go?

Jacqui Vital: No, no, the kids are too little anyways. Negev is five and a half and Eshav’s two and a half, so.

Ellin Bessner: Right. How is Negev’s foot? I know he was shot on that day.

Jacqui Vital: Oh, yeah, he’s fine. He had surgery the day after and he’s fine. He’s totally fine.

Ellin Bessner: Look, The reason we got in touch with you was because of a letter that was published on October 7th by you and some of the other Canadian families, bereaved hostage and victim families, to Prime Minister Carney. By you and your pro bono lawyer, Brandon Silver, from the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. I wondered, we can talk about it because you guys put it together before the peace deal or the ceasefire and so it kind of came out before. So with that in mind, first of all, whose idea was this letter?

Jacqui Vital: In August, someone interviewed me, and we put out a video. And part of it, besides telling Adi’s story, was, “I can’t call you, Prime Minister Carney, because there’s no phone number in the Nepean district where my sister lives and where I’m staying. So maybe you could call me?” 

I had Anthony Housefather. I wrote to Melanie Joly, I wrote to Anita Anand. I said, “I want to speak to the Prime Minister.” I got nowhere, of course. Yes, yes, we told them. We told them, but tachles, nothing happened.  I did speak to Anita Anand though, and before we spoke to her, I sent her the video that we have, that’s called “Who Heard of Holit?” The part of about Adi’s story and the famous pictures that the terrorists filmed. The terrorist with the two boys in his arms; that’s a famous picture all over the world. People say to me, “Oh, we always wondered what happened to those little boys.”
So, yeah, those are my grandsons.  And, you know, they’re bandaging Negev’s shot foot on the porch and then telling him to say Bismillah, the blessing in Arabic, and then telling him to drink. I mean, this is like minutes after they’ve murdered his mother, probably in front of his eyes. So I sent this to her to see because she had no idea. And I’m sure Carney has no idea. And that’s why, you know, I said to him in that video, I said change your mind, you know, this is before he said okay to Palestinian State.

Ellin Bessner: Just so our listeners can keep up with our. We know where you’re going, which just follow us. You were in Canada for about two months, right? Crossing the country and speaking to Jewish day camps and, sorry, Jewish summer camps and Jewish groups, Ben Gurion University groups all across the country for two months this past summer.

Jacqui Vital: Yes.

Ellin Bessner: And so you were doing these parlour meetings, I guess you would call them. And so this video that you were talking about, which we can link to, is with Lisa MacLeod, the politician in Nepean, who you.

Jacqui Vital: She was. Yeah, was.

Ellin Bessner: But now she’s a very big ally of the Jewish community. Why you want Prime Minister Carney to have a meeting with you? Let’s break down what’s in the letter it talks about. I don’t know if you have a copy, but especially time for leadership, especially after what happened in Manchester. And I’m wondering, you know, why do you want a meeting with the Prime Minister? And why are you so frustrated with the length of time it’s taken since he became leader in March?

Jacqui Vital: To tell the truth, I don’t know if it’s going to make any difference. But for me, and that’s why I do -not, I, we, because I usually do it with my husband, is to keep the story alive. I’m going back to square one that they don’t know. They just don’t know.  And how are we going to tell? It’s not like Shoah, the Holocaust, that nobody spoke for 30 or 40 years. And then all of a sudden, oh!

There are 1200, I say, and everybody goes, oh, no, no, no, no. 1200 equals 6 million. It’s a number. But they’re not numbers, they’re people. And I don’t know who all the 1,200 are, but I sure know who one of them is. And I want people to remember who she was, that she’s just not a number. She had so much to live for. And the research that she did, she was onto something. And it’s just, boom, it’s gone. And Negev and Eshel? Boom, Gone. You know, their mother’s gone, our daughter’s gone, my kid’s sister is..she’s gone. So we have to keep her alive.

Ellin Bessner: Why would you want Prime Minister Carney to meet with you, and compare to what you were able to achieve with the previous Liberal Prime Minister, who you did meet?

Jacqui Vital: I don’t know what we achieved with them either. But I mean, I. When I met (Justin) Trudeau a year and a half ago, and I said to him, I was in Canada on October 7th, and I said, I know for a fact on October 8th, you already knew about three of them. There were only three at that point. Vivian Silver, Adi, and one of the boys. I don’t remember which one. I said, “And you didn’t call me the day, the next day when we reported that they found her body”. 

So, okay, we know she’s not kidnapped, and she’s been murdered. And nobody from the government called us. Like, do they care about their Canadian citizens? All they care about is the Palestinians.

We give money to. UNRWA, like, why are they doing this? Why are they on their side and not helping us? That’s what I want to know. Why aren’t they helping us?

Why aren’t they doing anything about what’s happening in Canada?  People I know, they’re afraid! The woman that was stabbed in Ottawawas a relative of mine. Just the antisemitism that’s just blown totally outside of the bag. Like, they don’t even know. They don’t even know how to stop it. I don’t know if anybody does.

Ellin Bessner: Well, you mentioned Hamas giving monies and UNRWA. So let’s bring up that lawsuit which the Canadian, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and Lawrence Greenspan, the lawyer in Ottawa representing your group. Where is that lawsuit that you all filed a year ago, April 2024, to have an injunction to review the governments. Just for our listeners who may not remember, Ottawa paused the money for UNRWA when it was discovered that some of the employees of UNRWA were suspected to have taken part in the murders of Israelis during October 7th. And then like five minutes later, they lifted the, the pause and started to continue the money.

Jacqui Vital: That’s exactly when we met Trudeau. It was just after they started giving the money back.

Ellin Bessner: So you and CIJA went and asked for an administrative view at the Federal Court.

You know, you mentioned that there’s a lot of antisemitism. You heard stories about it as well when you were crossing the country.

Jacqui Vital: I see it. I saw it a few times. Like when we were outside McGill driving by, and we saw protesters. When I was in Ottawa, they stopped the [Pride] parade. And I’m on those Facebook groups, you know, the Jewish Ottawa, Jewish Toronto. So I see every day people are posting things that are happening.

Ellin Bessner: Right. That’s kind of an important topic in the letter that you released on October 7th. So you haven’t been successful in getting in touch with the Prime Minister, but you did meet with Anita Anand by phone, right? The Minister of Foreign Affairs. So at least you got her. What did she say?

Jacqui Vital: Like I said, she didn’t know anything. Also on the phone with me was my nephew, who did a lot of the talking, and he spoke a lot about the antisemitism problem in Canada. What she did say is she was leaving that night to go abroad. And when she came back, we were just going to miss each other. She was coming back to Toronto, and I was just leaving Toronto. So she said to me, when you come back the next time, tell me, and hopefully we can have a meeting. So I’m coming back in two weeks, and I’ve written her and said, I want to see you, and maybe you can take me to see the prime minister. I mean, I’ve been pushing this for the last two weeks, and let’s see if they could do it or not.

Ellin Bessner: What will you tell him?

Jacqui Vital: I don’t know, but I still want him to know the story. I still want him to know the story. I still want him to know that there’s eight Canadians. In May, there was the NOVA exhibit in Toronto, and I got a flyer saying that one day, one of the mothers of one of the NOVA survivors, the Canadian NOVA survivors, was going to be speaking about the four Canadians who were murdered at the NOVA. I saw that and I hit the roof. I found out who was behind all of this, and I said, “No way that’s going to happen. I said, this isn’t in Timbuktu; this is in Toronto. You are going to say the names of all eight Canadians. You want to talk about NOVA after, go ahead. But when I speak, I always say there were eight Canadians. Yeah.”

Ellin Bessner: Yeah. And Omer Neutra’s family lives in Calgary. (American Israel who was killed Oct. 7)

Jacqui Vital: That’s what I’m saying. It’s just… it’s not going to change anything. It’s going to make me feel better that they know. Maybe they’ll tell somebody else, I don’t know. But they have to know. These are their… he’s supposed to be my prime minister, right?

Ellin Bessner: I get the feeling that you’re sort of mentally preparing yourself for the actual memorial dates in Israel that are coming. Can you tell us a bit about what is planned and what you are going to participate in?

Jacqui Vital: I have no idea what the government has planned. None. No one has ever reached out to us from the government. Nobody. They had a memorial two nights ago in Park Yarkon that the families put together, you know, a memorial ceremony on October 7th. But I wasn’t part of that either. I… I don’t even know how. I wouldn’t… I didn’t even know how to be part of that.

Ellin Bessner: It’s a different grief, and I understand that.

Jacqui Vital: Yeah. So, I don’t know. I mean, we’re speaking about Adi. My husband speaks about what happened that day on the kibbutz because he’s a survivor. He was there on Holit that day. So, when we do these presentations, we tell the story and we tell the story of the miracles that happened to him, that he’s still around.

We’re going to be speaking at Adi’s high school in the morning. In the evening, one of her friends wrote a one-man play about Adi, and she’s going to perform it, and then we’re going to do our presentation at some community centre. A few nights later, we’re doing it at another community centre. Also, on the 15th at night, we’re doing it at a community centre. And on the 25th, we’re going to Adi’s pre-army academy to speak to the new generation of kids at this academy. There were three people from that particular machina who were murdered: Adi, Aner Shapira, you know, the one that threw the grenades back into the shelter with Hersh Goldberg-Polin that weekend, and a third young man who was a paramedic who saved a lot of people.

So they try and do something in memory of the three of them, and they asked if the parents could come. So we’re going to be there. We’ll show again some of the footage we have of the day.

Ellin Bessner: You know, mentioning the army, the ceasefire is supposed to start. Do you have family or grandchildren, older grandchildren, that are in service now or were?

Jacqui Vital: I have a son-in-law who was in four times. He was the son-in-law who lived on Kisufim. They were 14 hours in their safe room with three small children and shooting all around them, but the terrorists did not go into their house. They were evacuated by the IDF straight to buses that took them to the Dead Sea. And over the last two years, he’s been in the army four times. The first time they took him, I said, how could they take him? His wife just lost her sister, and he doesn’t even have to go, or so he believes. He turned 40.

Ellin Bessner: So is he there now, or he’s home?

Jacqui Vital: No, he’s home, and he knows that he’s supposed to go in November, so maybe now he won’t have to go. But he does have another call-up. He does know that he has another call-up. And his kids are hysterical. They just hear the word Miluim—you know, the military reserve—and they just go, “You can’t go, you can’t go.” They start crying, and you’re going again. Yeah. I don’t know how my daughter does it because there are eight and six-year-old twins that just started grade one. So you can imagine the last two years of their life: living in a hotel for 10 months, then temporary housing in Omar. Not even their house. Right, but whatever. Better than living in a hotel. Yeah. Now they’re two weeks back into Kisufim, and they only moved to Kisufim at the end of July 23rd, and one of the reasons was to be closer to Adi.

Ellin Bessner: Well, I hope that you do get a meeting or a phone call, and you’ll let us know how it goes.

Jacqui Vital: Okay, you got a deal.

Ellin Bessner: May her memory be for a blessing and amen.

Jacqui Vital: Bye.

Ellin Bessner: Thank you so much.

And that’s what Jewish Canada sounds like for this episode of North Star, made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation.

Jackie Vital will be back in Canada at the end of this month, including to attend a fundraising dinner in Ottawa being put on by the Friends of the Jewish National Fund. Charity proceeds will help rebuild her daughter’s kibbutz, Holit, even though Vital says it’s unlikely the two boys and their father, Anani, will ever return to live there. The family is living in a moshav nearby, but Anani commutes back to the kibbutz as manager of the fruit crops. He’s also launched a pineapple-growing business in his late wife’s name with little stickers on the fruit. A code takes customers to a website with her story.

We asked the PMO for a statement but didn’t receive a response by deadline.

Our show is produced by Andrea Varsany and Zachary Judah Kauffman. Michael Fraiman is our executive producer, and the theme is by Brett Higgins.

Stay with us for continuing coverage of the pending ceasefire and hostage release and Canadian reaction. And thanks for listening.

Show Notes

Related links

• Read the letter to Mark Carney from the families of the eight Canadians murdered on Oct. 7.
• Learn about Adi Vital Kaplun’s life through her parents’ mission to keep her story front of mind, in The CJN from 2024.
• Read more about the families’ legal efforts to hold Canada to account for funding UNRWA, in The CJN.
• Watch Jacqui Vital’s conversation Aug. 8, 2025 with former Nepean MPP Lisa MacLeod, during the Jerusalem resident’s summer speaking tour across Canada.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

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