Bring Them Home

Some were young people who had stayed up all night dancing at a peace and love concert. They had glowing fluorescent butterflies on their faces. Others were in tiny suburban communities snuggled in their beds. A little girl held her doobie, her teddy close to her body. A mother was up nursing her infant baby. A 12 year old boy was our for an early morning jog outside his kibbutz. Men were waking up and getting ready to go to the community synagogue.

It was a hot, late-summer, lazy Israeli Shabbat morning. Many extended families had gathered together for the last of the Fall Feasts, Simchat Torah, a day of rejoicing and picnicking and partying. 6:29 am. The missiles started flying overhead. Not in eights and tens as is usually the case, but all at once, unceasingly. Because the computer systems were not working as they should (these questions will be answered after the war), and because there were so many rockets from Gaza fired at once all throughout central Israel, Iron Dome could not keep up and warning sirens did not sound. Everyone was caught completely off guard.

It is reported that up to 3000 Hamas terrorists, some special forces, recently trained in Iran, entered into Israel, bombing the fences and walls (after drones carrying explosives knocked out satellite and communications towers). The armed terrorists overwhelmed the military bases at the border, slaughtering and mutilating the soldiers. Tanks stationed at the border were blown up with RPGs and incendiary grenades. Each squadron had body cams and go pros, uploading every minute onto TikTok, Facebook Live, Instagram Live, Telegram and other social media sites. It has been established that Hamas operatives were also embedded journalists working for AlJazeera, Memri TV, BBC, CNN and other media outlets- all of it was recorded and broadcast victoriously to the world.

After the terrorists, came the ‘innocent’ civilians of Gaza. Security camera footage documents this. The civilians were young boys and older people, men and women. As militants were torturing their Jewish victims on the kibbutzim, young kids from Gaza were standing by as onlookers. There is much documentation and video recordings to show this. As homes were being bombed, Gazan civilians were absconding with golf carts of booty.

People who were in their safe rooms for hours report that after the gunfire and explosions, they could hear people inside, speaking Arabic, rummaging through their homes. One lady, Nurit, hiding in the shelter on Kibbutz Aza recognized the voices of her housekeeper and her two teenage daughters. She smelled the food they were cooking… food she was going to serve that day for Shabbat. The family heard the banging of something metal on the saferoom window, now sealed shut. Gunshots in back of the house. Then the voices of men scraping chairs along the floor in their kitchen. They were having lunch with her housekeeper . Nurit described the sound of dishes breaking and the television blaring. The terrorists were watching Netflix while she and her three teen children hid afraid to make a sound or move.

The ‘pickers’ came to take anything of value they could find- jewelry, electronics, clothes, bicycles, musical equipment, golf carts. They looted the bodies of the dead taking wallets and cell phones. The next day, credit card purchases to AliBaba and Amazon were attempted with shipping addresses to London, to Barcelona, Lyon, Paris, Marseilles, Amsterdam and the United States as well as Gaza. The credit cards all had names of Israelis living within the Gaza Envelope, the 20 towns and kibbutzim along the border.

As the torture, brutality, killings and destruction was happening, so we’re the abductions. On to motorcycles. Into cars and pickup trucks. By foot. Men, women, children….and even several babies, the youngest was 9 months, little redhead ex Kfar Bibas, his 4 year old brother and his imma. The photos of a confused and distraught Mrs. Bibas clutching her young children as they are led away captive went viral within a day.

Ethan (12) and his dad, Ohad (49) Yahalomi lived on Kibbutz Nir Oz. They did everything together.

On the morning of October 7 their world stopped. Hamas terrorists entered their house and abducted them to Gaza. BRING THEM HOME NOW!!

Avinatan Or, 30, is the second eldest of seven brothers from Shilo. He now lives in Tel Aviv and works as an electrical engineer. Avinatan is described as a carefree and optimistic soul. He planned on marrying his girlfriend, Noa.

On October 7, when terrorists paraglided into the Supernova Festival, Avinatan and Noa Argamani, 25, initially succeeded in hiding, trying to call for rescue forces. But shortly thereafter, a Hamas video on Telegram showed Avinatan and Noa being ripped away from each other and being taken to Gaza. You should know Noa. She’s the one on the motorcycle, screaming, arms extended and pleading for Avinatan to save her. The photo went viral for two days. BRING THEM HOME NOW!!!!

Yahhel Shoham is a gorgeous little 3 year old toddler. She was plucked from her warm bed in Israel along with her 8 year old sister, Naveh. They lived in Kibbutz Be’eri with their mother, Adi, and father, Tal, both 38.

The entire family along with Adi’s brother, her parents and her aunt and uncle were all gathered for a weekend get-together. Adi’s father, aunt and uncle were brutally massacred in front of the family. Her mother and husband were kidnapped, thrown into the back of a truck. The two little girls were also abducted by separate terrorists. In all here were 8 members of a single extended family abducted. They are now held in captivity in a Gaza hellhole. BRING THEM HOME NOW!!!

“I am wounded and bleeding, Mummy. I think I’m going to die.” These were the last words of 23 year old Romi Gonen during the almost 40 minute (recorded) phone conversation with her mum, Meirav, and her family. Romi had been at the music festival and was shot but hiding when she contacted her family. She is now somewhere in Gaza and her parents have had no word if she’s received treatment, her condition, or even if she is alive- BRING ROMI HOME NOW!!!!

It was not only the young who are being held hostage. We have a friend who’s best friend is off in Gaza somewhere. He is 75 year old Alex Dancyg, originally from Poland. Alex is a noted Holocaust historian and author of several books. Living at Nir Oz, ironically Alex was an expert on the rounding up, abduction and systematic murders of the Jews of Poland during WWll. “All the tour guides in Poland, at the Jewish sites and Nazi camps, use his books exclusively as reference,” our friend Piotr told us. BRING HIM HOME NOW!

Yagil Yaakov is a 12 year old boy who has severe allergies and is on medication for other medical conditions. He is now somewhere in Gaza. On day 34, the Hamas terrorists released his picture taken in captivity.

This past Sunday, Noam, a shopkeeper in a Judaica store found an order for the boy from his mother in Kibbutz Nir Oz. “I was uneasy when I saw it, “ he said. He knew the story of Yagil. The order was a pair of t’fillin (prayer boxes a Jewish man straps on his arm and head for prayer every morning) in an embroidered bag with his name on it. He called the mother, Rina, to find out how everything was, how the family was.

He is supposed to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah in a month and a half. Rina insisted on paying for the gift, but Noam refused to accept any money from the mother. “She told me, ‘Noam, you’re not giving me the money back. Soon Yagil will come home and we’ll have a big celebration, G-d willing. We need to get ready in the house. There is a big Bar Mitzvah to celebrate and we need to do everything we possibly can to bring him home.”

By now, you might have seen Rachel Goldberg. She’s spoken at the Stand With Us rally in Washington, DC and at several other venues. Her son, Hersh Goldberg Polin, 23, has been abducted to Gaza by Hamas terrorists. His crime? Attending a music festival… in Israel.

“Right now, how we are living is hard to describe to you,” Goldberg told the crowd of nearly 300,000 at the National Mall in Washington last Tuesday. “We hostage families have lived the last 39 days in slow motion torment. For 38 nights none of us have slept the real sleep of ‘the before.’ We all have third-degree burns on our souls. Our hearts are bruised and seeping with misery.

“But the real souls suffering are those of the hostages,” she continued. “And they want to ask everyone in the world —all the screamers, the indifferent, the experts, the academics, the knowledgeable, the passives, the perfectly outraged, the righteous, the indignant, the haters, the leaders, the lovers—every single one of us: Why? Why is the world accepting that 240 human beings from almost 30 countries have been stolen and buried alive?

“These children of God ranged in age from nine months to 87 years. They are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Hindu. Why are they being left underground in the dirt?” she asked.

“Abigail Mor Idan is three years old; she watched her parents get murdered in front of her and was then kidnapped, and she would like me to ask the world, why are you letting her stay in the dark in her trauma, buried in the Earth’s crust?” she asked. “And Joshua Mollel, who is a Tanzanian African graduate student studying agribusiness, would like for me to ask you why somehow his life actually doesn’t matter. The world must prepare what we will say to them.”

They all have names. Families. Stories. Their photos are being torn down around the world. But they are all very real. Their photos must be shown. Their names must be spoken. 240 precious children of G-d. Their stories must be shared.

BRING THEM HOME NOW!!! Pray that all the hostages will soon be reunited with their loved ones.