The blue and turquoise yarmulke I am wearing during this year’s High Holy Days has an oval patch depicting mountains, streams, and sunshine. Despite its uplifting design the head covering fills me with sadness. My wife, daughter and I have spent the last three Passovers at Ramah Darom, a summer camp and retreat center in Georgia. Hersh Goldberg-Polin and his family had been regulars at the retreat well before we started attending. Hersh was abducted a year ago today, on Oct. 7, and he was one of six hostages recently murdered by Hamas in Gaza’s tunnels. He was 23. Although they had not been at the retreat for several years, Hersh and his parents were very present at this past year’s gathering. The Talmud instructor began one class pointing to where Hersh’s father, Jon Polin, used to sit for the daily discussion. “I can see him in the chair,” the instructor said mournfully. Others shared how Hersh’s mother, Rachel, befriended everyone she encountered. In the retreat’s synagogue a poster with Hersh’s smiling face, saying “Bring Them Home,” was taped to a chair. During a prayer service sobbing erupted around me. Word had circulated that Hamas had released a hostage video of Hersh. I bought a Ramah Darom yarmulke, and wore it to my Conservative Park Slope Brooklyn synagogue for Shabbat. Most of the congregants had simply designed yarmulkes, emphasizing their solemn approach to observance. Although I have made many friends from synagogue and draw satisfaction from being part of a faith community, I never took it to prayer. I feared that my multi-colored head covering with the oval patch, marked me as an unserious Jew. I stored it away and borrowed the yarmulkes kept in the synagogue’s lobby. Some months after last Passover my wife, daughter and I visited Israel, where we have many relatives. We stayed in Jerusalem’s Baka neighborhood, near my mother-in-law. Hersh’s family lived in Baka after moving to Israel. Low slung buildings displayed huge banners: “Bring Hersh Home!” Posters with Hersh’s likeness hung in store windows, and were taped to light poles. It was as though fate had drawn me into Hersh’s orbit, connecting me to everyone who was praying for his safe return. I imagined the celebrations that would erupt in Baka once Hersh returned home. The people at Ramah Darom who were sobbing when the hostage video was released, would be crying tears of joy once he was freed. When the news came that there would be funerals rather than celebrations for Hersh and the hostages who were slaughtered with him, I choked back tears. I wondered whether the poster tapped to the synagogue chair, and the banners displayed in Baka, would become a permanent memorial to crushed hopes. Ramah Darom distributed an email picturing Hersh as an adolescent. He was smiling while preparing to scale the retreat’s climbing wall. The same wall that my adolescent daughter climbed. A writer from Israel’s Haaretz newspaper criticized Israelis who grieved over the lost hostages, but were unbothered by the killing of Gaza’s noncombatants. I am less scornful of Israeli indifference towards Palestinian casualties. Soldiers and hostages are dying. Rockets threaten the homeland. Israelis understandably feel unsafe. Similarly, it is natural for American Jews to grieve more for the hostages, than for Palestinian civilians. Humans are a tribal species and relate to people who share their religion, their ethnicity, the same climbing wall. Yet living in Brooklyn, far from missiles and tunnels, should allow me enough perspective to see the Palestinians. Until now I have justified the civilian deaths as the unavoidable consequence of this undeniably necessary war. But with Israel saying that Hamas has been reduced to a spent force, it is difficult to understand why civilians should continue to suffer. At the same time, my attention is turning elsewhere. My relatives are facing danger from Lebanon and Iran, while the war against Hezbollah’s terrorists has civilians caught in the crossfire. Nonetheless, these tragedies in no way diminish the horrific plight of the hostages and their families. The day of Hersh’s funeral I had a FaceTime call with my mother-in-law. “Are you wearing that in memory of Hersh,” she asked, with a sad smile. Perplexed, I scanned my clothing. I was wearing a Ramah Darom sweatshirt. The next Shabbat I proudly wore my multicolored yarmulke, with the oval patch, to synagogue. I will continue wearing it on the High Holy Days, and throughout the year. It’s a reminder of the joys I have derived from Jewish life, along with the legacy of sorrow that history has assigned my people. Krull is a lawyer and writer.