A mourning rabbi looks to hostage son, slain in Gaza, for direction as he pushes for a deal

When Eliya Cohen was released from Hamas captivity late last month, he met with Rabbi Elhanan Danino, the father of murdered hostage Ori Danino, to tell him about his conversations with Ori in the tunnels under Gaza during the first days of their captivity.

“Speaking to Eliya was such a shock,” said Danino. “It was very intense and very emotional, and it’s the last testimony I have so far from my son.”

The two hostages — both in their 20s, both from religious homes in the Jerusalem area, and both taken captive from the Supernova music festival — immediately connected, Cohen told Danino.

“Eliya told me that Ori was sitting on the floor of the tunnel, saw him, and said, ‘Come here, come here, come sit next to me,’ and he did,” said Danino.

Over several days in the tunnels, Eliya watched as Ori, with a bullet still in his shoulder, fiercely protected wounded fellow captive Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who’d had the lower portion of his dominant left arm blown off before he was taken hostage.

Ori fought with the armed Hamas terrorists, said Cohen, yelling and screaming at them to provide medical care for Goldberg-Polin.

“Eliya told me that in the tunnels, Ori knew he wouldn’t get back home again,” said Danino. “But he knew he had to try and save Hersh.”

Ori and Goldberg-Polin were killed alongside Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi and Alex Lubanov in a tunnel in Gaza, their bodies discovered by the IDF on August 31.

Now Danino is doing his best to fulfill his son’s wishes by dedicating a Torah scroll in his name and spearheading other efforts he believes his son would have wanted. He is also dedicated to representing the families whose loved ones are still held hostage in Gaza, and he speaks at rallies, protests and the Knesset.

Danino, his ex-wife Einav, and their four other children stayed out of the spotlight during the 10 months that Ori was held captive. At 25, Ori was a career soldier who had signed on to remain in the IDF after his mandatory service period ended. That made the Daninos part of the group of hostages’ families whose loved ones are soldiers. They kept a lower profile at the start of the struggle to bring the hostages home, concerned that too much publicity about their children’s army status would endanger them in captivity.

But when Ori and the five others were murdered by their Hamas captors, Danino criticized Benjamin Netanyahu during a condolence call the prime minister made to the family.

“Everything happened on your watch,” Danino told Netanyahu. “My son was murdered in a tunnel that you built on your watch.”

Since then, Danino sees his public role as part of his commitment to his son, who had escaped the massacre at the Nova festival to a car but went back in to save Omer Shem Tov, Maya Regev and Itay Regev. All four were then taken hostage; the Regev siblings were released in November 2023 and Shem Tov was freed on February 22, 2025.

“If my son jumped into the fire to save Jews, then how can I not get out of my chair to help those who are in captivity?” said Danino. “My son requires me to. I was in that situation for 330 days. I know what they feel, morning and night, and every moment. They have nothing left to give.”

Danino said his role is also to represent the religious voice in the struggle for the hostages.

“I don’t always feel good about it, but I feel like I’m the only religious voice there,” he said, particularly at the Knesset, where hostage families and supporters gather each Monday.

Danino said he looks directly at the Haredi leadership, who often see him as one of them.

“I say to them, ‘Do not stand idly by,’” he said, quoting the Torah. “People are being killed there, and what, nothing?” More than five hundred days, “and you haven’t banged on the table for it to stop?”

Danino said he understands the ins and outs of the Knesset, as he was involved in the ultra-Orthodox Shas party until 15 years ago, when he decided that he could no longer work in politics in good conscience while setting an example for his children. At the time, Shas was suffering from internal rifts and legal troubles, including allegations of misallocating funds and criminal convictions in its leadership.

Now Danino has returned to the parliament building, and his goal is to make sure the hostage deal is completed with all the hostages brought home.

“It’s insane,” he said. “They want to make it seem normal that there are hostages in Gaza. There are some good people there [in the Knesset], but I think most leave their heart at the entrance.”

Danino is vehemently against the idea of continued, protracted phased releases, with 24 of 59 hostages still being held captive in Gaza presumed alive. He wants everyone out, now.

“Phases, are you kidding me? Is there time for phases? Did you see [released hostage Eli] Sharabi?” said Danino. “I saw him, I saw him in person. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. It’s what we saw 80 years ago in the Holocaust.”

The story behind the story

The Danino family lives in Ramot, a mostly Orthodox enclave in the northern end of Jerusalem. Since his divorce, Danino lives in a simple apartment whose walls are lined with Judaica and pictures of his five children, including one of Ori, at his bar mitzvah, with Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the late longtime spiritual leader of Shas.

Danino’s two youngest children, Aharon, 16, and Hodaya, almost 12, split their time between their parents’ homes. Hodaya, the youngest and the only daughter, now has a dog, which she got during the last year while dealing with Ori’s captivity and murder.

Danino tries to take it all in stride, particularly when his three older sons make different decisions about their own religious practice.

Ori wasn’t religiously observant, but that didn’t bother his father.

“I’m not the lawyer for God,” said Danino. “All my children are my children, no matter what decisions they make, and each one does what’s good for them.”

He wasn’t surprised when Ori wanted to join the army, which he too had done even though he grew up in an ultra-Orthodox home, where military service is very much the exception.

“Ori wanted to be in the army, he didn’t see anything else. He said that was his career, his way of serving the Jewish people.”

Ori, the oldest, often spoke for his siblings, said Danino. “I didn’t interfere, I just signed the checks,” he said.

“Ori understood where they were coming from. I don’t have Instagram, Facebook, TikTok; he could speak to them at their level.”

It was one of Ori’s soldiers who had invited him to the Nova festival, which was held on Shabbat and which Ori didn’t mention to Danino when they spoke on the phone the day before.

Danino wasn’t surprised when he found out that his son had gone back into the brutal massacre carried out by Hamas terrorists on October 7, to save three other partygoers that he met earlier during the rave.

“His instinct was to help other people,” said Danino. “I would always say to him, ‘What, the whole world rests on your shoulders? The whole army? You’re the only one in the army?’ He said, ‘Dad, I have strength and ability and if they turn to me, that means they’re missing one of those, and I can fill in. That’s what I do.’”

“He’s a person who gave of himself,” said Danino. “He saw the other before he saw himself. He would tell me that he knew how to take care of himself.”

Ori told his father a few years ago that it would be an honor to die for the State of Israel.

“He told me, ‘When you go to work, you go to an office, and in the army, you go to war. I won’t sit in an office, I’ll be on the frontlines,’” recalled Danino. “I’m sure he’s smiling from above. I just hope I’m doing what he wants.”

What the future could hold

One of Danino’s projects is working with Haredi teenagers (and with their parents) who don’t want to study Torah all day, helping them find direction, including the possibility of serving in the army, a contentious issue in the Haredi community.

Danino thinks about the decisions Ori made during his teen years, when he attended a Haredi high school where many of his classmates also ended up in the army, usually in combat units.

“If Ori could do it, they can too,” said Danino. “Ori wasn’t Samson. He had the spirit and we gave him our support; he knew his family was always behind him.”

These days, Danino said he prays each morning for Ori to point toward what he wants his father to do.

“I was in the corner and wanted to stay there,” said Danino. “My son is somehow taking me to a place like he did in life, to make me see the other.”

He likened this to the friendship he now knows flourished between Ori and Goldberg-Polin in captivity.

“Look at them,” he said. “[Supporters of rival soccer teams] Beitar and Hapoel, Israeli and American. Eliya told me he didn’t leave Hersh for one moment. Eliya saw it. My son fought and I’ll continue his path.”

Danino is thankful for his beliefs and that he had 49 years of religious practice to carry him through the months of Ori’s captivity and subsequent period of mourning.

Those first 11 months that he was a hostage, it was the hardest thing that you can imagine, like a cancer in the body for which there is treatment that you can’t access

“If I were younger, I’m not sure I would have been able to accept this,” said Danino. “Those first 11 months that he was a hostage, it was the hardest thing that you can imagine, like a cancer in the body for which there is treatment that you can’t access.”

The knowledge that Ori was killed and can no longer return from captivity has knock-on effects, Danino said. For one, it has given him the freedom to speak up and say difficult things to the prime minister.

Danino said he gains strength from his friends and from the group of hostages’ parents whose children were soldiers when they were taken captive — a group that covers Israel’s diverse society, with Bedouin, Haredi, ultra-Orthodox, secular, liberal and right-wing Israelis — which meets every few weeks to eat dinner.

“These are my people,” he said. “I will be with them for the rest of my life.”

He said he thinks about that support group and wants the Israeli public to understand that unity is all that matters.

“We agree on 90% of the issues. Whatever’s left to debate, we can talk about,” said Danino.

Danino also fell in love recently with a woman who sent him an etching she made of Ori’s face. The sketch now hangs on the wall of his apartment and their relationship is an unexpected blessing during the dark months of mourning his son.

Nothing will ever be the same again, said Danino.

“With my son gone, I don’t want my life to go on as it was. I want my life to continue, but with the sense of my son’s presence,” he said. “I don’t want to live in sadness, but something is missing from me every single day.”