Andrew Guckes | Staff Writer
Agam Berger has become a symbol of Israeli strength in the face of adversity.
The 20-year-old was released from Hamas captivity just weeks ago, more than a year after she was taken from an Israeli military base along with four other soldiers.
When one group of Israeli captives were released from Gaza in January, they had braids in their hair, put there by Berger. The braids were a sign to her loved ones that she was still OK, as well as a sign of unity among the soldiers who were captured and remained captured.
Now, local students in Philadelphia as well as peers of theirs in Israel are honoring Berger and the rest of the captive Israelis and victims of the Hamas attack with braids of their own.
Lia Seiden is an eighth grader at Abrams Hebrew Academy in Yardley. Seiden felt inspired a few weeks ago when her cousin came to her house with braided hair.
“She braided her hair in honor of Agam Berger because it had been reported that when some of the female hostages had been released, Agam had braided their hair right before Hamas released them so her family knew that she was still alive,” Seiden explained. “So it was then that we decided to expand this idea and create the hashtag ‘#braidsforagam.’ I took the hashtag to everyone I knew and created a page on Instagram. The next day, I received photos and phone calls and text messages from girls in Israel and in the U.S. with their hair braided.”
The idea spread around the area, country and world. Chedva Weiss is a teacher at the Yitzhak Navon School in Hadera, Israel, and operates a program that brings students at her school together with students at Abrams. She said that the Braids for Agam movement inspired students at her school to do the same as their peers in the states.
“I published it on Facebook and Instagram and the whole community got so excited. It was two days before she was released, and I can tell you that every class braided their hair, and we explained the meaning of the braiding,” Weiss said. “We are honoring a girl, because that’s what she did [in captivity]. I sent photos to everyone at [Abrams], and a day after, she was released.”
The Abrams community was in unison in late January with their braided hair and yellow ribbons, the color chosen to honor those still in captivity. At Abrams, the connection to Israel is strong, said director Rabbi Ira Budow.
“We’re trying to connect kids to Israel, and our eighth graders being in contact with eighth graders in Hadera makes our kids more aware of things that are happening with the hostages on a daily basis,” Budow said. “I think that our kids, instead of just being in this cocoon in Yardley, Pennsylvania, they know what is going on in Israel.”
Seiden said this idea was rooted in the relationships she has forged with those students in Hadera.
“Every day, a lot of what we do in school is [about Israel]. So this program has been amazing, and they’ve really helped with [Braids for Agam]. They sent it to the people they knew and all of Abrams [helped us] make this project come alive,” she said.
Weiss has neighbors and acquaintances who have been captured or killed, and she said that the conflict is much closer than a world away for the Jews who live in the Holy Land.
“As a Jewish people, we are all tied together to the same faith. It doesn’t matter if I live in Israel, New Zealand, Australia or New Jersey. We need to come together as a community. The program together [with Abrams], these are just 14-year-olds,” Weiss said. “It gives you warmth for the future of the world, because this time it happened in Israel, but what if something happens to another Jewish community around the world?”
