The Mother Who Wouldn’t Break    

T

he late afternoon sun hangs low over the Kfar Maccabiah complex in Ramat Gan when I pull up for my meeting with Julie Kuperstein, mother of released hostage Bar Kuperstein. Behind the hotel’s polished glass doors, a uniformed desk clerk surveys the empty lobby, and I scan for signs that I’ve made it to the right place.

Walking to the lounge area, I spot a familiar-looking man in a motorized wheelchair, and I know I’ve arrived. I’d viewed enough clips of Julie Kuperstein at tefillah rallies and mitzvah initiatives dedicated to her son’s release to recognize the woman in the tichel and modest attire sitting in a far corner of the lounge.

A few weeks after October 7, Julie visited the hostage headquarters for the first time. Until then, numb with pain and grief, she’d been closeted in her room, crying and unwilling to communicate. “I was entirely nonfunctional,” she recalls.

After fellow hostage parents impressed on her the importance of joining them at the headquarters, Julie acquiesced. But eventually, she bowed out of their efforts and took a path of her own.