Beyond Time: A Father's Song for His Son
Idan Shtivi is still being held captive
A good friend visited Hostage Square in Tel Aviv this week and spoke with Eli Shtivi, the father of Idan Shtivi who has been held captive for 400 days. Eli shared this song with her, and she asked me to translate it so she could share it with the amazing Momentum community where she is the director of education.
On October 7th, 2023, Idan helped others escape the Nova party before being taken captive, and since then, Eli continues to knock on every possible door and do everything he can to work for his son’s release and the release of all the hostages.
As the Shtivi family is a musical one, his father decided to create a song about Idan, playing off the meaning of his name which can be translated as "Era" or "Age" or "Time". Through the mediation of a family friend and singer Esther Castro, a speech that Idan's brother Omri gave in front of 100,000 people was shared with songwriter Einat Hollander, and this song was born.
A full year after October 7th, the army told Idan's family they believe he was killed right away, but as they still have no body to bury, Eli says he has not given up hope that Idan may yet return to them.
This song, and Eli’s voice, offer strength, determination, and hope.
A note about the translation:
All of my song translations are creative, i.e. not literal— I try very hard to hold on to the spirit of the lyrics as I maintain the rhyme and meter of the song.
In this song particular, I maintain the meaning in most of the verses quite closely, but the words of the chorus are quite different, so I bring here a more literal translation of the Hebrew of the chorus:
This is a time of truth
A time of togetherness
This is the time to confront
All the fear
To be once again brothers
To live in a safe haven
Don't say desperate
Because a new time has come