Holding Liat

Our guests are brothers Yehuda and Joel Beinin and the director of the 2025 documentary about them, Holding Liat. On October 7, 2023, Yehuda’s daughter, Liat Atzili, was abducted by Hamas, and spent 54 days in captivity in Gaza before being released. Yehuda’s son-in-law, Aviv Atzili, was killed. In the film, Yehuda and Joel offer different understandings of the political context in which October 7 occurred. I asked them to elaborate on their views, and to talk about how an ideologically diverse Jewish and Israeli family grapples with an experience of terrible trauma.