Community Synagogue Honors Release of Gilad Shalit

Since the summer of 2010, a photo of Gilad Shalit, the Isreali soldier held captive in Gaza for five years, sat on the bema of The Community Synagogue in Sands Point.

After Shalit was released Tuesday, it was time to take the photo down. As a congregation, The Community Synagogue tied a new beginning for Shalit, reunited with his family in Israel, with the celebration of Simchat Torah, which marks the completion of the annual reading of the Torah. 

"There's a pain that goes along with captivity that doesn't just affect the captive but affects the family and the community and in many ways the entire Jewish people," Rabbi Danny Burkeman said.

Rabbi Irwin Zeplowitz said, "1,941 days Gilad Shalit was without any loved ones. Today is day number two that he's free."

To provide a sense of the time that transpired during Shalit's captivity, Zeplowitz asked those who had become bar- or bat-mitzvahed during the last five years, or anyone whose children had, to come up to the bema, and take down the photo.

And as a community that's just what they did.