I’ve lived in Israel for nearly 30 years, but as an ode to my American heritage, I have continued to mark the Thanksgiving traditions my parents put in place as first-generation Americans. Along with a standout roast turkey recipe that I sourced years ago, I like to prepare my mother-in-law’s mashed sweet potatoes topped with sugared pecans and fresh cranberry relish served in my mother’s cut-glass dish.

My family always celebrates this most American of holidays with family and friends in our Jerusalem bubble of American-born expats. We order a turkey and begin hunting around for cranberries, sometimes smuggled in by someone returning from a trip to the United States and, more recently, from one of the many Russian supermarkets in Israel. We serve pumpkin, too, cut into chunks and roasted with onions and chickpeas and, using canned pumpkin, made into easy pies.

We even have a friend who dresses up as a pilgrim, using those big white paper dinner napkins to create a wide pilgrim collar. It’s pretty hilarious.

But we didn’t gather last year for Thanksgiving. In 2023, the holiday arrived just weeks after October 7, when more than 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage by Hamas terrorists.

Among those hostages was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the 23-year-old son of our good friends Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, who have long been part of our Thanksgiving tradition.

None of us had the heart to celebrate, not without Jon and Rachel, not knowing that Hersh and the other hostages were in captivity. And not with so many soldiers and reservists—some of them our children, nephews and nieces—on the front lines, and with tens of thousands of Israelis evacuated from their homes.

Yet just after Thanksgiving last year, there was a development to be thankful for. On Friday, November 24, Hamas released the first batch of 105 hostages during a weeklong truce.

I now look back on that brief moment of hope in a kind of fugue of disbelief. Each afternoon, my Times of Israel team would review the list of hostages and then carefully watch the television footage that night, scrambling to update our online profile of each hostage as they crossed over into Israeli territory. It was a miracle then, and even more so now in light of the dark days that followed.

Here we are, one year later, and Hersh is dead. After being held deep in a tunnel in Gaza, where he was starved and tortured, his Hamas captors executed him and five other hostages in August.

In the last 12 months, many of us have learned how to keep living despite the pain and tragedy, when illness and death, heartache and sorrow, surround us. Hersh’s parents and sisters are now having to figure out how to go on with the rest of their lives even as they continue to mourn their beloved son and brother. The same is true for the families of the other hostages killed, including those who were murdered alongside Hersh—Or Danino, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, Eden Alexander and Alex Lubanov.

There are still weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, trips abroad—though few airlines now fly to Israel, and El Al is pricey—and holiday celebrations. But Thanksgiving? That seems unlikely again this year.

As the holiday approaches, it’s hard to think about having that type of gathering, of bringing together the same group of friends who have spent the past year praying, rallying, protesting and lighting candles for Hersh.

It’s also too painful, knowing that Jon and Rachel won’t be sitting at the table with us, not this year. We’d also be missing two other families that annually join us for Thanksgiving—one of them, Jon and Rachel’s cousins, the other their best friends.

But maybe all my spirit isn’t lost. After living in Israel for the past three decades, I’m fairly Israeli—and that means I’m not making any firm plans yet. On a personal level, I have plenty to be thankful for: my own family, including my husband, two stepdaughters and two teenage sons; our siblings and their families who live close by; and our network of dear friends.

If, as Thanksgiving nears, it feels right to mark the holiday, we will somehow. Because that’s how I and other Israelis move forward—finding a path, even a last-minute one, amid the sorrow. I will buy a turkey and most likely head to a Russian supermarket to get frozen cranberries. I’ll pick up some canned pumpkin and a bag of sugared pecans.

And though my past Israeli Thanksgivings have all been celebrated on Thursday, maybe I will opt for Friday night this year, the de facto choice for many American Israelis, because it’s just easier when you have to prepare a Shabbat meal anyhow.

Easier is O.K. this year. And being thankful is a blessing, even in dark times. 

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Jessica Steinberg is the longtime arts and culture editor for The Times of Israel. After October 7, she focused much of her reporting on the hostages abducted to Gaza and on The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing podcast.