As is always the case Thanksgiving week, our deadline for The Jewish Link was pulled back a full 24 hours due to the need for our distribution team to take off Thursday to be with their families. So while we usually go to press on Wednesday evening, this week we went to press on Tuesday evening. This presented a particularly interesting and potentially significant challenge as our editorial team began to see, on Tuesday morning, hopeful news articles and half-confirmed stories about a potential deal to free some of the hostages from Gaza. While this was news we had been anxiously awaiting, we were loath to place this as our main news story because by the time our paper was delivered on Friday, the news would most certainly have gone through several cycles and our story would be out of date. What we feared most, of course, was that it would be Friday and the hostages would still not have been freed.

So while we wish everyone in our readership a peaceful and thankful Thanksgiving and Shabbat, we continue to pray fervently for the safety of our chayalim, for the hostages to be free and for this war to be in our rearview mirrors.

This holiday season we are grateful for the strength of our Jewish nation. We pray that the unity and hope that has come with this war will remain, long after our soldiers and hostages have come home. And that the news we read about on Tuesday morning will have come true in the best possible ways.