Men in their 80s sitting on cold cement filthy floors.
Young women bleeding naturally and unnaturally, cleaning themselves with lukewarm water and rags for 202 days.
No medication. No Red Cross. No proof of life. Yet here we are - Passover.
The story of our release from bondage, slavery and captivity in Egypt. The story of plagues being brought upon those who denied our freedom. The story of Moses leading the Jewish people into the land of Israel.
Several of the hostages released at the end of November have said they kept track of the day count in there, and one who was released said he marked Shabbat every Friday evening in the garbage-packed room he was "kept" in with this friend. His friend was not released with him, and since learning this story I've gotten lost imagining the guilt he must feel for taking his opportunity to leave captivity when his friend could not. The unbearable thoughts this young man must live with, knowing someone he bonded with for fifty days of hell is still in that disgusting room filled with garbage - if he is still alive.
Does his friend in there know it's Passover? Does he still mark the days? Has he made a new friend?
Do the hostages know that Seders all over the world had empty seats for them at the table?
And this year after my four months in Israel writing, the new friends that I got to know so quickly and so well there - friends from Kibbutz Be'eri who so easily could have been slaughtered, who so easily could have been taken themselves, were gathered in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv (more than 500 people) to tell this story of the Jewish people's release from hell and our journey to Israel, while being simultaneously surrounded by the kidnapped posters of their friends and family, who are still missing, still tortured, and a few who have already been murdered.
A Seder involves reading a Haggadah - a book that tells this ancient story and this year mine was printed at Be'eri Print from this Kibbutz, Israel's leading printing and mailing factory, whose website reads "In spite of everything, we must keep printing."
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, who works directly with the families of hostages and with whom I volunteered selling "Bring Them Home Now" gear, collected donations for hardcopy or digital copies for this version with quotes from current family members, keeping us laser focused on the present nightmare we have all been living through for now 202 days.
I have struggled to write this piece, wanting it out by last Friday morning Israel time three days before Passover, then settling for at least prior to the Seder...yet I found myself just staring at the screen all weekend, so finally asked my friends in Israel to please share their thoughts with me. I asked if they too were trapped in a mental labyrinth of darkness.
"I have nothing. I am empty," said one friend. (I quickly assured her this wasn't 'nothing.')
"I am trying not to think about it," said another.
"Nobody is celebrating this year," said a third. "Instead of saying 'Chag Sameach' (Happy Holiday) as per usual, everyone is saying "Chag Herut," (To Freedom this Holiday). And these were the 48 hours before I left for my Seder Monday night, feeling like a failure with my laptop left open on the couch, my Passover piece half written and abandoned.
I arrived at my friend's home with my homemade charoset (a delicious mix of apples, walnuts, cinnamon and honey that represents the mortar used to lay bricks in our days as slaves in Egypt). I had parsley for the salt water that represents our tears and my fake wine for the drops of "blood" I would put on my plate for each of the ten plagues. We put the Kibbutz Be'eri 2024 "script" for the night from my laptop to her big screen to read along and I did a short speech and shared about my time in Israel, the families I got to know, the story of Itay Svirsky (story here) from Be'eri who was murdered on Day 99 in Gaza and the hostage that I pray is still alive - Or Levy (story here) - whose kidnapped picture sat on the empty chair next to me at dinner.
It was a beautiful Seder and reading the prayers for those in captivity right now interlaced with the prayers for our ancestors and for the future of the Jewish people couldn't have been more moving.
For the first time in weeks, I found I could focus on my new job. For the first time in months, I felt just a smidgen of hope.
And then today during a work meeting I snuck a glance at my phone and saw a friend's text on WhatsApp: "You saw Hamas released a video of Hersh?" No, I had not.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the American-Israeli whose mother Rachel was just listed as one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people after 200 days of posting with her husband on Instagram incredibly hopeful messages, having her son's picture all over the world, including on the world-famous Jesus in Rio de Janeiro and starting the tradition of masking tape on shirts, with the day count of this war and of the families' despair.
Hersh was taken from the same bomb shelter near the Nova Music Festival as Or Levy and Alon Ohel, whose mother put the piano in Hostage Square. The video that circulated from October 7th showed Hersh climbing into the back of Hamas's pick-up truck, packed with other hostages and it was visible that his arm had been blown off. This was all his parents knew of their son's condition until today's video, which I actually believe was released on Monday, in the hours before their Seder in Israel. I sat in my work meeting in the small room at the Charlotte Library after seeing this text and had to say nothing and carry on with the mundane work conversation I could care less about. When I got home, I began scouring the internet and texting everyone in Israel. The first version of the video I was sent did not have subtitles and I marveled at how I understood about 80% of Hersh's very fast Hebrew. "Mom, Dad, Libby and Orly, I love you very much - I miss you very much - and I think of you every day that I am in here. I know that you are doing everything to make sure I get back home as quickly as possible and that you won't stop until all of the hostages get back in peace. I expect and I hope that this is fast. I will not have peace on this holiday, but I hope that you do." It turns out this part was a very shortened edited version, and also that I hadn't understood his stating that 70 other hostages were dead.
I looked for and quickly found that indeed his parents had already posted a video. Both were calm, and looked relieved in their seriousness, despite their son's face looking broken out from the filth, his raising his left arm to show a severed stump and his saying that they were suffering underground without water, without food and without sunlight.
They spoke clearly and strongly to those involved in the hostage deal, those in Qatar, Egypt, The United States, Hamas and Israel. "Be brave, lean in, seize this moment and get a deal done to reunite all of us with our loved ones and end the suffering in this region," said his father John, with respect to all involved. Rachel then added: "And Hersh, if you can hear this...we heard your voice today for the first time in 201 days...and if you can hear us - I am telling you - we are telling you - we love you. Stay strong. SURVIVE." Such power. Such grace. In what is inconceivable.
I am ecstatic that this family was brought this comfort at last for their Passover, but imagine the other families of these 133 souls?
Hamas timed the release of this video to further slash the hearts of the families on this holiday about freedom from captivity...and yet the airwaves in America are plastered with the youth all over this country, wearing Hamas scarves and face coverings, chanting "We are Hamas," and vowing to repeat October 7th not once, not twice, but tens of thousands of times. These students were in fact endorsed by Hamas today as the "future leaders of America," and with the exception of House Speaker Mike Johnson (see video here), there has been no leadership shown, zero accountability for these kids (and faculty) on campus and not even condemnation of this behavior that praises the rape with knives and burning alive of idealistic peaceful kids exactly like themselves who only wanted to dance - and peace with their neighbors. This country - The United States of America - is one I have spent the last 20 years of my life saving my permanent access to - which was the only reason I left Israel the first time after immigrating there and feeling incredibly whole for the first time in my life. Yet after all of this sacrifice, I have watched with shock and horror since October 7th the celebrations of my slaughter, to the point that I was on a one-way to Israel by myself by November and wished I'd done so sooner. I have now had to leave Israel a second time to handle the final stages of my American Saga, despite the success of this project to tell the stories from Israel and of my writing - but this stint on US soil is temporary. Let me be clear - Israel is my home. The immediate connection and understanding I found in nearly every conversation I was privileged to have in my four months there - has not left me. The world of love I found was instant and profound and reminiscent of all that I discovered when I decided to move there years ago, and I have been haunted by the realization that I should never have left this home of mine on this sliver of land on the Mediterranean, this special place that is beauty in its diversity of culture and language and thought - where differences are celebrated but where we are bound in our love for each other and our rich past, entwined in our current struggles and standing as one in a vow for our future. As it was not only the love and care I felt for the survivors that I met, who let me into their hearts and their minds and their hotel rooms and their cars and their homes in their darkest hour and shared with me - a stranger, but it was these "strangers" who in the midst of their grief over brothers and daughters and sons and best friends and entire communities - it was they who finally lent an ear to this mysterious and somewhat strange writer girl, and who listened to the trauma and loss she had been through herself which enabled her to be drawn to their suffering in this time of great need, and gave her the capacity to dwell in their sorrow and not even consider looking away. We are a people of such strength and such heart and such authenticity and such depth that we can cling to each other with beautiful vulnerability, ensuring that our light will never be dimmed, let alone extinguished. Nor will the light of the many we have lost on and since that day that changed everything.
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This is a labor of love and I feel called to do it, but my four months in Israel were self-funded and I had to leave temporarily to work. I plan to return as soon as July and the latest by December and work with the kids from Be'eri, who have been evacuated to the Dead Sea area for more than six months. I plan to use my dance and theatre background to bring some joy into their lives. My writing and interviews also continue from the US, with plans to write a book about this journey to Israel during the aftermath of October 7th. Any donation will be used to fund this project and will be very much appreciated. Link to GoFundMe. With gratitude, Melanie
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