November 11, 2025

“We never want to have to wear these tallitot again…”

As the first anniversary of October 7 approached, in the fall of 2024, Rabbi Steven Lowenstein felt he and his Am Shalom Congregation in Glencoe, Illinois, had to do something ahead of the High Holy Days.

He felt the need to do something for the hostages, many of whom were still in captivity at the time.

“The five of us walked out for those first High Holy Days wearing these. And then every single Shabbat, this is the only tallit we wore, even though we had so many others, until the hostages were free. We were singing “Achinu” at every service. We were praying for Israeli soldiers in every single service.”

Rabbi Lowenstein and his congregation had seven of these special tallitot (Jewish prayer shawls) made in order to show their solidarity with the plight of the hostages. Five were worn each week by the clergy of the congregation, with two extra shawls also prepared.

The Rabbi added – “A dear friend of mine, Hanna Yerushlami, wrote a poem that speaks of how yellow can now be yellow again and a tallit can be a tallit again. Once the 20 hostages came home, we could go back to wearing just our regular tallitot.”

The tallitot are comprised of different elements related to the events, including T-shirts from the global campaign to raise awareness of the hostages, ribbons and shirts from the Nova music festival which came under attack on October 7, as well as a flag of the IDF’s Givati Brigade, some of whose injured soldiers met with Rabbi Lowenstein and his delegation when they visited a hospital in Israel.

One of these remarkable tallitot has now been deposited at the National Library of Israel, as a contribution to our Bearing Witness Archive, documenting the events of October 7, their aftermath and the global response.

We at the National Library of Israel were incredibly moved to receive this unique deposit.

This post was originally published by the National Library of Israel