OPINION: The Circle and the Shadow: The High Holidays That Changed Everything

The last 72 hours, from the start of the release of the final living hostages at 6am on Monday morning, to the conclusion of the High Holidays at 8pm Wednesday night, have been a whirlwind of emotion.

Tears of joy for those who came home, tears of sorrow for those who never will. Hope that this might mark a new reality for the Middle East, fear that history tells us otherwise.

But whatever comes next, whether the outcome proves surprisingly good or predictably bad, these Jewish High Holidays of 2025 have been the most meaningful and impactful in modern Jewish history.

The Year That Wouldn’t End

Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, brought with it, as it always does, the theoretical promise of renewal.

But it felt hollow. Like every other supposed moment of joy since October 7th, 2023, it was joy as performance, a mask we wore for our children. We blew the shofar, we sang Avinu Malkeinu, and we smiled, but inside, the world still felt broken.

Then came Yom Kippur, the holiest day in our calendar, marked this year by the brutal murders of Jews on British streets for the first time in three centuries. The inevitable culmination of a society that had allowed antisemitism to flourish unchecked, to grow and metastasise until it was not a whisper in the shadows but a roar in the streets.

The Days of Hate and the Days of Hope

Sukkot arrived with rumours of a ceasefire, whispers of the hostages’ return. The second anniversary of the Hamas massacre passed with disbelief that such redemption could ever come.

And yet, even in those days between Yom Kippur’s bloodshed and the Sukkot anniversary of terror, as Jews lay dead at the hands of a man inspired by hate, emboldened by a movement built on hate, the marches continued.

Thousands once again took to the streets, the same chants, the same flags, the same performative fury, proving that October 7th had not woken our societies to evil but emboldened those who thrived on it.

A Morning Unlike Any Other

And then came the eve of Simchat Torah, the single greatest day of joy in the Jewish year. The day we dance, we sing, we celebrate as one people.

This year, it was also the morning the hostages came home.

The final return. The end of a national heartbreak that had stretched on for two unendurable years.

They came home to their families, and in doing so, to all of us, for in the Jewish story there is no distinction between their children and ours.

That night, as I stood in synagogue, arm in arm with people with whom I shared everything that mattered, faith, memory, pain, hope, we sang the song that has become our collective anthem: Acheinu.

Our Brothers and Sisters

The words of this 11th-century prayer, which means “our brothers and sisters,” are a plea for those in captivity and distress to be brought from darkness to light, from oppression to redemption.

We have sung it every day since 7 October.

And on that night of Simchat Torah, as we sang it again, perhaps for the last time, tears streaming, it struck me just how much has changed.

The prayer has been answered, at least in part. The captives have come home. But so too has something else: an unshakable awareness that life will never again be the same.

From Darkness to Light

We have witnessed, in this period, the entire cycle of Jewish existence, exile and return, despair and renewal, mourning and celebration. It has reminded us that Jewish time does not move in straight lines. It circles, like the Torah scroll we dance with, ending only to begin again.

That cycle is not metaphor alone; it is memory. From Egypt to Babylon, from Spain to Poland, from the ashes of Europe to the rebirth of Israel, our story has always been one of repetition and return. We are a people who endure because history and generational experience have taught us that we are eternal. That society will seek out new versions of the same hate, repackaged, redefined, familiar in tone if altered in language. The same tropes, the same scapegoats, dressed in the garb of each new era.

But together, we remain.

And yet, that circle, which may feel momentarily complete with the hostages’ return, is not the end of the story.

Because while redemption has come for some, hatred has found new life elsewhere. The release of that ancient poison over these past two years has unleashed something that will not easily be contained.

In Israel, they dream of peace, a lasting peace with their neighbours, a homeland free from war and conflict. But in the diaspora, we now live in a new reality: one where antisemitism has found a new host, evolved once again, and is going nowhere.

This year, the circle feels complete, but we recognise that this feeling is transient, momentary at best.

From darkness to light, yes, but also into a shadow that still lingers.
And as we step into the new year, scarred but still standing, one truth endures:

“We are still here. We are still singing. And even after everything, the circle remains unbroken and so do we.”