For hostage families, there's no such thing as closure

(JNS) — My daughter Alisa was murdered in a Palestinian Islamic Jihad-Iranian sponsored terrorist attack in Gaza on April 9, 1995. She was 20 years old, a college student studying at Nishmat in Jerusalem on a leave of absence from Brandeis University. She had worked hard at college for more than two years to take that leave of absence. It was her sixth trip to Israel.

In that instant, my world was divided into “Before and After.” It has never returned to Before; it never will.

I can’t read stories about hostage returns or terror victims without feeling that moment all over again. Even after 30...