“Their lives stopped [on October 7] and now they are nothing except trying to make a difference”, explains Orly Peli-Bronshtein, editor of a cookbook recently published by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum to raise awareness of the hostages still held in Gaza. Peli-Bronshtein is a food writer and former chief gastronomic editor or Al HaShulchan, Israel’s foremost culinary magazine. Like most Israelis, she lost friends in the attacks.
Her friends the Zoha family — Yaniv, Yasmin, Tehelet and Keshet — were murdered, orphaning their son, 12-year-old Ariel — who escaped the massacre having gone running that morning. Like most of her countrymen she needed to do something to help. So when she was approached by Israel’s leading food network, Foody Israel, to edit Shavuot of Longing: Their Recipes on Our Table she didn’t need to think twice.
The book is a collection of favourite recipes picked by the families of those still held as hostages in Gaza, or those who have lost their lives in the war. Since the war started, she had also edited Cooking Together , 30 recipes highlighting various products grown in the Western Negev. That book (like this one) was produced by Israel’s Food Network, Foody Israel, but that project was with Kibbutz Be’eri to raise funds to help to restore Be’eri’s agricultural sector and ensure that agricultural workers could return to work.
“Most of Israeli agriculture is in this area near the Gaza strip, and with so many kidnapped .
