Bibas family playroom opens in Israeli children’s hospital as lasting memorial to murdered hostages
Hospital playroom filled with tech, toys, and butterflies built with blessing of surviving relatives
A new children’s playroom has opened at Schneider Children’s Medical Centre in Israel to honour the memory of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas, who were kidnapped and murdered after the 7 October terror attacks.
The vibrant space – featuring orange butterflies and interactive digital games – was designed in partnership with Toys for Hospitalised Children and created with the full support of the Bibas and Silberman families.
The Bibas playroom features a “digital touch wall”, a gaming table, and a mural or rolling green hills with three orange flowers symbolising Shiri and her two sons. The butterflies were inspired by four-year-old Ariel’s love of chasing them on picnics, recalled by his father, Yarden Bibas, in a moving eulogy.
“I wanted it to be in memory of the Bibas family, the children, and the mother,” Michelle Domb, one of the project’s lead funders, told eJewishPhilanthropy in March, when the project was underway.
Domb initially wanted to remain anonymous but later chose to speak out “to make my children proud.” She partnered with Sruli Anatian, another lead donor, who similarly said had he backed the project “to make his mum proud.”
The £118,000 playroom was built inside the hospital’s new Glass Building and was officially opened this week in Petah Tikvah, just months after the family’s funeral. It is the third playroom created by the group in Israel.
Speaking to eJewishPhilanthropy in March, Domb said the project was only greenlit after receiving the family’s full blessing. “I did not want to do anything without the family’s approval and bracha,” she said.
Toys for Hospitalised Children president Rabbi JJ Hecht II met with Shiri Bibas’ uncle, Maurice Shnaider, at a hostage vigil in New York. “I said to him, ‘Maurice, we have an idea and we want your blessing,’ and he cried immediately and said, ‘Yes I love it,’” Hecht told eJP.
Shnaider then spoke to surviving relatives including Yarden Bibas – husband and father of the murdered hostages – and Shiri’s sister Dana Silberman-Sitton. “They gave their blessing and they were happy about it. And they will always know that (Shiri, Ariel and Kfir’s) memory will be there forever,” said Shnaider.
Photos from the opening ceremony yesterday show Yarden Bibas, wearing a Batman shirt, helping cut the ribbon.
Shiri Bibas, 32, was abducted from her home in Nir Oz along with her sons Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9 months – the youngest Israeli hostage taken on 7 October. Her husband Yarden was taken separately. After months of uncertainty and false claims by Hamas, Israel confirmed in February that all three had been murdered in captivity.
The new playroom now stands as a tribute to their memory – and a space for other children to play, smile, and heal.
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