This Hanukkah, the global Jewish community has one major wish for the holiday: the release of the hostages still in Gaza (in addition to world peace, of course.)
After more than two months in captivity, it would be the ideal miracle to find out that all of the remaining hostages have returned safely to their families.
More than 130 hostages still remain in captivity, including 17 women and children. (Hamas has claimed that the two children, one who would be 11 months old by now and his 4-year-old brother, were killed with their mom in an Israeli airstrike - after being sold to a different terrorist group - but this has not been confirmed.)
The majority of the remaining hostages are men (some in their 70s and 80s), several who are the fathers of the children who were released (and the father of the two children still in captivity). Although the ceasefire deal was supposed to include Hamas releasing all women and children, that didn’t happen.
The hostages and their families are on my mind this Hanukkah. We light our Hanukkah menorah hoping to bring more light into this dark world and pray that the warmth of this collective light from around the world makes it to the hostages wherever they are. Many of the released hostages say they were kept in the many of the dark tunnels Hamas built under the city of Gaza. (Tunnels that keep the Hamas members safe, while the people of Gaza are left vulnerable above ground.)
We light our Hanukkah menorah hoping to bring more light into this dark world and pray that the warmth of this collective light from around the world makes it to the hostages wherever they are.
Testimonies of Oct. 7 survivors have included acts of sexual violence, including rape and gang rape by Hamas and a UN session on sexual and gender-based violence was held this past week at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The session was organized by Israel’s Permanent Mission to the UN and included survivors of the massacre, as well as former Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg. It took more than eight weeks for the organization UN Women - the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women - to condemn the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel.
The fact that there are so many in the Western world that are still celebrating the Oct. 7 acts of violence - and still tearing down posters of these hostages - is so horrifying. I understand that many are protesting the attacks against Gaza civilians and it is devastating to witness the destruction of this war. But the calls for a global intifada (aka widespread violence against Jews in Israel and across the globe) - and the absence of any outcry for any of the violence in other areas of the world - make me question the validity of the humanitarianism of many of these protests.
While U.S. college students are waving Palestinian flags on their college campuses, there are women their age being held hostage by the people they’re advocating for. Oh, but they were soldiers, some argue. Since the State of Israel requires every Jewish Israeli citizen over age 18 to serve in the military (with some exceptions), a large number of Israelis has or is currently serving in the country’s military. Additionally, more than 360,000 reservists reported for duty after Oct. 7, many leaving their families in other countries to help defend the Jewish homeland.
Because military duty is so widespread in this tiny country (the size of New Jersey), the loss of a soldier hits hard throughout the country and many Israelis have spent the past two months attending funerals - not only for those killed on Oct. 7, but for soldiers. While the soldiers are considered heroes for protecting their country, families would rather there were no war and that the soldiers wouldn’t have to go and fight. (This differs from those Palestinians who celebrate their loved ones’ death if they die as a “martyr” after murdering Israelis and whose children aspire to be martyrs.)
The purpose of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is to protect Israel and its independence and ensure the security of its residents. Note the word “defense” in its name, as the country has always had neighbors who seek to destroy it.
One of the Israeli female hostages - Naama Levy, 19, whose video Hamas posted on Oct. 7 shows her bruised and cut with pants that looked like they were stained with blood and her hands tied behind her back, being pulled by her hair from the back of a pickup truck and pushed into the back seat - just finished her course the previous week to become an observation soldier at Nachal Oz. Her parents had planned to visit her that day since it was her first Shabbat on the base, according to a Times of Israel article. She’s the great-granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and was a 2022 participant in the Hands of Peace project in the U.S., which aims to work toward peace between Israel and Palestinians.
One of the elderly hostages, Oded Lifshitz, 83, was initially taken with his wife Yocheved, 85 (who was released on Oct. 23). The couple were among the founders of Nir Oz and were peace activists who regularly transported patients from Gaza to receive medical treatment in hospitals across Israel.
Most Israelis throughout the country would have preferred peace with Gaza rather than all this destruction. I don’t know if there are Palestinians in Gaza who feel the same way, or if they all still consider Hamas to be “freedom fighters” and celebrate their “resistance.”
As we light our Chanukah menorahs this week, may the collective light this brings to the world also bring some miracles.
So many beautiful people overshadowed by so many bad ones. What’s really scary is that people move on, forget. Thank you for keeping the discussion alive for the few people who live this every day, so it stays on the minds of those who only read about it. And may the hostages get to go home, and heal. Will they still work for peace?