I was going through security at Ben-Gurion airport on Saturday night, on my way to meeting with some people working on a mechanism to try to save Israeli democracy. A small group, fascinating people, and good for the soul to actually be trying to do something—regardless of what comes of it. (More on this meeting, perhaps, down the road.)
So as one must do at TLV, I took my laptop and put it in a bin.
The buy behind me in the security line—seemed like a perfectly nice guy—remarked to me that he’d never seen anyone tape their passwords to their computer. I wasn’t even looking at the laptop and for a second, had no idea what he could possibly have been talking about. “There,” he pointed, and I saw the tape.
I was tempted to tell him that my passwords tend to be a bit more complex than four sequential three-digit numbers, and that no, even if those were my passwords, then no, I couldn’t have them taped onto the laptop.
They were, I explained to him, the number of days that the hostages will have been held in captivity while I’m away. Instead of bringing masking tape and a marker with me, I just prepare the numbers and put them on my shirt on the right day.
Interestingly, he was moved beyond words. He was stammering. “That’s so touching. I’m so moved.” And on and on.
But what struck me is that while in our neighborhood, you see people wearing the day’s number all over, here was a person who when he saw the numbers, had no idea what they were.
We’ll come back to the hostages, but first, what’s in store for this week (as of now):
TUESDAY (03/19): Many of the expressions of “faith” that the average English-language reader hears coming from Israel are hardly, ahem, inspiring. But whether we ourselves are personally on a faith-quest, knowing about the beauty of some visions of Judaism in Israel are key to understanding who and what the Jewish State is. Today, we’ll focus on the “faith-filled left.”
WEDNESDAY (03/20): A finance and investment expert, Shelly Hod Moyal co-leads iAngels, a firm she co-founded and scaled to becoming one of the most active venture funds in Israel. We hear from her the story of her extraordinary success, learn about her firm and its social commitments (Arabs and Haredim also work there) and also find out why she’s so optimistic about Israel’s future. We’ll post an excerpt for everyone, and the full conversation for our paid subscribers.
THURSDAY (03/21): If Chuck Schumer needs to get business cards printed up any time in the near future, he should probably add “Chief of Bibi Re-election Campaign.” Most Israelis have had it with Netanyahu, but they are incensed at Schumer’s trying to meddle in our internal political system (even if they agree with Schumer’s assessment of the PM). Biden and Schumer are trying to punish Bibi, but they’re actually boosting him, because they don’t begin to understand Israelis society. Might Bibi make it politically? It’s less unthinkable than it was not long ago, so we hear a leading Israeli commentator, Lior Schleien, share his assessment of what another Bibi term would look like.
FRIDAY (03/22): Breaches of protocol in the IDF are becoming more frequent—it’s a sign of the rage and worry wafting through Israel. Last week, we wrote about Brigadeir-General Dan Goldfus who took on Netanyahu, and in normal times, would have been fired—but of course wasn’t. Today, we’ll see a military ceremony that was attended by the father of one of the women soldiers at a base that was overrun on October 7. She was killed, perhaps burned to death. We’ll see the incident, and reflect on what is unfolding in Israel writ large.
In other segments of Israeli society, though, everyone focuses on the hostages front and center. The two videos here are of the protests in Tel Aviv on this past Saturday night. In the first one, at the top of the page, you can hear the leader chant, at one point, ein zman, “there’s no time,” and then Et Kulam, “All of them,” a chant which people repeat.
What’s striking about the video below is that it seems indistinguishable from the 2023 judicial reform protests. If anything, these are like to get larger than those. 2023 may end up being child’s play relative to 2024. We shall see.
Even those of us who do everything we can to keep the fate of the hostages foremost in our own minds and primary in the consciousness of Israelis writ large, discover periodically how many dimensions of their lives we simply cannot imagine. The common questions are obvious: “Are they still alive?” “Are they being held alone, or with others?” [There are cases of both.] “Are they being raped? [I’ve heard medical personnel who treated the first group of released hostages say many of the women in the first exchange came back pregnant, and I’ve heard others who deny that in no uncertain terms and are outraged than anyone would say that. I have no idea what the truth is.]
And there are more questions we ask. About their locations: are they in houses, or underneath the ground, struggling to breath in the horrible tunnel air? Are they in decent or terrible health? Is anyone tending to their medical needs? How are they keeping sane? Have they given up?
You think you’ve figured out the biggies, that in some way, you imagine that you have a faint idea of what they’re going through, and then you realize you don’t know anything. The week before last, Yarden Roman Gat (whose husband and daughter survived and were able to escape their captors, which she at first did not know), gave an extensive interview to Makor Rishon on her experience.
By now, we’ heard so many stories about how the terrorists broke into the kibbutz, who was killed, who was captured, who escaped—that as mesmerizing, and even miraculous—as those stories are, they are no longer as shocking.
But one small paragraph in the interview stopped me in my tracks:
Yarden told her interviewer that she didn’t really cry in captivity. She wanted to appear strong. She was afraid that appearing weak would invite them to do things she didn’t want them to do (they didn’t). She cried, she said, only twice. The second time was when the crossed the border from Gaza to Egypt, and realized—even though they weren’t yet in Israel—that they would be OK. Everyone in the van, she said, but everyone, began to sob uncontrollably.
But the first time she “lost it” (as she put it) was as a result of the radio. At first, her captors were stingy with the one radio they had, because there was no power and they were conserving batteries. But with time, they loosened up a bit, and let her listen to the news. In Hebrew. She learned that the IDF had gotten over its initial failure and was in a serious war. She heard about the unprecedented unity among the people. She heard members of her own family speaking to the press about her and her other family member (still in captivity). It calmed her, it reassured her. It didn’t negate the horror and the fear of captivity, but it did at least something.
But then, one day, she was listening to the news, and she heard, for the first time, the people who were opposed to the hostage exchange deal that was then being negotiated. The timing wasn’t right. The price was too high. This was wrong with the deal, that was wrong with the deal. And the deal should not go through ….
It was when she heard Israelis, many of them in the government, speaking in the most “principled” terms about why she should remain a hostage, she “lost it.” Her sobbing alarmed her captors, who wanted to know what was wrong, who sought to soothe her and calm her.
Of that whole lengthy interview, that’s what stayed with me. Israeli hostages, at least some of them, are hearing the news. They’re hearing that our government is deeply split even over whether to keep negotiating. They are undoubtedly hearing hear that the war has turned into a slog, that we’re not “winning” the way that we were. And they’re hearing Ben Gvir oppose a deal, Smotrich explain that all that will work is massive military power. They’re hearing their elected officials pontificate about why getting them out is not Israel’s first and foremost goal.
I would imagine that they, too, sob. That they, too, cannot believe what they’re hearing. That they, too, want to understand how they could have been abandoned on October 7, and now, again. I imagine that their spirits are crushed.
And even if they know why some of us are wearing those numbers on our shirts, I kind of doubt it would bring them much relief.
But I’ll keep doing it. Because the act of getting dressed ought to be an act that involves remembering them. And their hell.
There’s a different kind of hell, too. The pregnant women who lost their husbands during their pregnancy, who are going to give birth without their partners by their sides, and who are going to raise these children—these partial orphans— on their own.
I thought the video of the event held to support some of them was moving, and worthy of sharing.
There’s really not much to say, except to remind ourselves that beyond the war, beyond the politics, beyond the delegitimization, this is a society of the walking wounded, the walking terrified. Labor and delivery rooms are usually the scenes of great joy and celebration. They’ve become infinitely more complicated here, for now.
Impossible Takes Longer is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and at other booksellers.
The "Bring Them Home" protests heat up, but there's another group that's not coming home