To meet the needs of every generation, a language must be supple—malleable enough to document the tone of both everyday life and times of crisis. The Hebrew root ח–ט–פ (het, tet, feh), to snatch, provides a glaring example of this—from חֲטָף (hataf), an arcane punctuation mark that looks like a colon and shortens, or snatches, the sound of a vowel, to חֲטוּפִים (hatufim), hostages, a word sadly and commonly heard on the streets of Israel today.

The root is found in Scripture twice in Psalms 10:9: First, calling on God not to stand aloof when a metaphorical evil beast crouches like a lion in a lair לַחֲטוֹף‭ ‬עָנִי (lahatof ani), “to grab hold of a poor man,” followed by יַחְטֹף עָנִי‭ ‬בְּמָשְׁכוֹ (yahtof ani be-mashkho), “he grabs hold of the poor man as he pulls his net shut.” The Book of Judges 21:21 uses our root to tell the story of brutal warriors who are told to go out among the daughters of Shiloh וַחֲטַפְתֶּם‭ ‬לָכֶם‭ ‬אִישׁ‭ ‬אִשְׁתּוֹ‭ ‬(va-hataftem lahem ish ishto), “Let each of you seize a wife.” The Talmudic sages, in Pesahim 109b, advise that, to keep children awake during the seder, חוֹטְפִין‭ ‬מַצָּה‭ ‬(hotfin matsa), one should “snatch a matzah” for them to munch on. During the Yom Kippur service, Yoma 19b:15 suggests the High Priest should be made to hear loud nighttime city noises so that לֺא תְּהֵא‭ ‬שֵׁנָה‭ ‬חוֹטַפְתּוֹ (lo teheh sheinah hotafto), “sleep should not seize hold of him.” A rabbinic legend imagines that when King Solomon sat in judgment, דּוּבִּין חֺטְפִין (dubin hotifin), inanimate wolf statues would lunge at false witnesses, tearing them to pieces.

European history applies the root to חַטְפָנִים (hatfanim), kidnappers, who, under Russian Czar Nicholas I, would seize Jewish boys to serve in his army. A slang phrase from the 1930s, חֲטף וְאֱכֺל (hatof ve-ekhol), literally, “snatch and eat,” refers to the plight of German Jewish professors in exile who, unable to find academic positions in Israel, were reduced to selling hot dogs from a cart.

Today, after negotiations for a raise go sour, an Israeli may grumble, חָטַפְתִי לקְש (hatafti loksh), “All I got was a [Yiddish] noodle.” In 1965, food and beverage company Osem coined the word חֲטִיף (hatif), snack, to market what became a line of very popular Israeli munchies.

The root resounds dramatically in a stirring October 7 story. There, the derivation חֲטוּפָה (hatufa), abducted, is the Hebrew title of Taken, a 2008 Liam Neeson movie that was a sensation in Israel. On social media, the movie has now been compared to the true story of an Israeli grandfather, retired Maj. Gen. Noam Tibon, who, in spectacular fashion—like Neeson’s ex-CIA agent—rescued family members. In Tibon’s case, he rescued his granddaughters, son and daughter-in-law, who were in their Kibbutz Nahal Oz safe room, hiding from Hamas terrorists. Watch the movie, and you’ll see how real life in Israel is stranger than fiction. And more uplifting.

Joseph Lowin’s columns for Hadassah Magazine are collected in HebrewSpeak, Hebrew Talk and his most recent book, Hebrew Matters, available at gcrr.org/gcrr-press/hebrew-matters.