Relatives of 21-year-old family breadwinner Bar Kupershtein call for his release
Over five months since their son’s abduction from the Supernova festival as he tried to rescue fellow attendees, the young Holon native’s family still has no word on his condition

When Hamas terrorists launched a massive surprise assault on Israel on October 7, Bar Kupershtein, 21, a Supernova festival staff member and paramedic, stayed behind to care for the wounded until the last moment — when the terrorists took him hostage.
“He’s an innocent, ordinary person who was captured within Israel’s legitimate borders without any reason,” Itzhak Tabatchnik, Kupershtein’s cousin and a spokesman for the family, told The Times of Israel. “He and the others have been held there in inhumane conditions.”
Kupershtein, from Holon, was first reported missing on October 7, during the Hamas onslaught in which some 1,200 people were brutally murdered and 253 taken captive.
Following a rescue, the recovery of hostages’ remains during IDF military operations in Gaza, and hostage exchanges, it is believed that 130 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive. The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 33 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.
But Kupershtein’s family has received “no information, no clues, no message, nothing about Bar’s condition,” Tabatchnik said.
The family was able to geolocate Kupershtein’s telephone at 8 a.m. on October 7. Several hours later, they found a graphic video and photographs on Telegram of Kupershtein being tied up on the ground, posted by the Hamas terrorists who snapped them.

Until then, Kupershtein had been financially supporting his mother, Julie, his father, Tal, and four younger siblings. His father, also a paramedic, was severely injured about three years ago when he spotted a car accident on the side of the road and stopped to help. He has since suffered a stroke and remains disabled, using a wheelchair.
It was to earn money for his family that Kupershtein was working as a guard at the festival, said Tabatchnik.
“He’s had a lot of responsibility on his young shoulders,” said Tabatchnik. “We believe that his strong mentality will help him survive.”
Tabatchnik said that he and his wife, who is more “like an aunt than a cousin to Bar,” became closer to Kupershtein following Tal’s accident. Tabatchnik’s wife, Hagit, traveled to the United States with a group of the hostages’ family members in December.

Tabatchnik also said that he and other family members spend a lot of time at the Hostages’ Plaza in Tel Aviv with other relatives of hostages.
“We’re trying to emphasize the human voice of innocent people who were captured without any reason and who are still being held in Gaza,” Tabatchnik said. “All of us want Israel to win the war. And that means getting our people home.”
Tabatchnik emphasizes that the hostages “have nothing to do with any conflicts, any religious, political or land disputes.” They were “caught in the middle of a religious, national holiday. Their situation is worse than any horror movie. People were raped and killed and there is a lot of sadness, a lot of uncertainty.”
He described Kupershtein as an intelligent, kind boy with many friends.
“He is a people person, a family person. He loves to be loved, and he is the pride of the family,” said Tabatchnik. Another family member who asked not to be named described Kupershtein as “the kind of person who will stop and help change a person’s flat tire, even when he’s dressed all in white.”
When the Hamas rockets first landed, Kupershtein told his mother that he was packing up his things and coming back home. Instead, he stayed to help the injured.
“We heard from people who survived the massacre,” Tabatchnik said. “Families who told us that they feel… well, not guilty, but they owe a lot to Bar. He did what he had to do to save the lives of others. And he paid with his own freedom.”
Tabatchnik said that some family members have dedicated their time to advocating for Kupershtein and the other captives. He himself works in the tech sector and tries to combine working from home and doing what he can to help the hostages.
“It isn’t a “balancing act,” Tabatchnik said, because that would make it “strategically programmed and planned. This is day-to-day. We’re all just trying to keep our heads above water.”

The Kupershtein family has “just about collapsed,” said Tabatchnik. Adult family members tell Bar’s younger siblings, Dvir, Or, Hila, and Yonatan, and other children in the family, that “we expect Bar to come back at any moment and we have to try to live normally.”
The family has started a lot of religious activities, including reciting Psalms, studying Torah and praying, including at a prayer service held at the Western Wall on January 10, led by the chief rabbis of Israel. The event was one of the largest-scale spiritual responses to the war, drawing thousands of secular and religious Israelis alike.
Tabatchnik said that the prayer service united people and made them feel closer, which felt like “a light in the darkness.”
“Our religion is strong and gives us the strength to keep struggling,” he said. “We keep praying for better days. We keep praying for our relatives to come back home immediately, safe and sound.”
Supporting The Times of Israel isn’t a transaction for an online service, like subscribing to Netflix. The ToI Community is for people like you who care about a common good: ensuring that balanced, responsible coverage of Israel continues to be available to millions across the world, for free.
Sure, we'll remove all ads from your page and you'll unlock access to some excellent Community-only content. But your support gives you something more profound than that: the pride of joining something that really matters.

We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel