Never Again: The Hostages and Postwar Norms
Gasps echoed through the aisles as the plane touched down in Tel Aviv, and passengers opened their phones for the first time in 12 hours. A man in front of me prayed. The first of the last twenty hostages had been freed! As we stood to exit the plane, all words were of the good news. You didn’t need to know Hebrew, French, or English to hear the exuberant joy and disbelieving relief in the voices.
Waiting for passport control, travelers stood in incredulous awe before the ubiquitous posters of hostages. In front of me in line, an African American tourist turned back to say, “I just feel Israeli today! Who wouldn’t, with a mood like this?” There were no taxis available as the visit by President Trump had shut the highway, but no one seemed to mind. I stopped to buy a train ticket, but an attendant batted me away. “No tickets today! No one should need tickets today!” He lifted the gate and waved me through.
Exiting the train in Tel Aviv, I was surrounded by people singing and dancing in the streets. The skyscrapers were covered in messages of thanksgiving. Hamas had, in their usual cruelty, stretched out the release of the hostages over the whole day, which meant that with each passing moment, there was new good news. Pushed along by the great crowd, I walked towards Hostage Square.
For the last two years, the question of the hostages– the two hundred and fifty-one innocent civilians of thirteen nations, kidnapped and tortured to instill fear in and extract concessions from a democratic state– has dominated Israel. But what nation would not be concerned with a hostage crisis of its own citizens on its own borders?
Significant international attention has been paid to the hostages, especially by Jews of the diaspora, including those with few or no ties to Israel. The horrific antisemitic attack on Boulder Jews this past summer highlighted a remarkable fact: in a small Colorado town, almost two years after the hostages were kidnapped, dozens were still marching weekly to raise awareness of their plight. Posters of the hostages hang across major American cities, patiently reposted after every antisemitic defacement. I met a man in rural New Hampshire who wore a dog tag reading “All of the hostages – now!” in Hebrew and English. He could not read Hebrew and had not attended a synagogue since his bar mitzvah fifty years before, but he felt compelled to keep raising awareness of the plight of the hostages.
It is tempting to argue that this sustained wave of activism by American Jews is nothing new. The majority of American Jews have always been supportive of both Israel and the plight of international Jews. But the attention and empathy paid by American Jews to the hostage crisis represent something deeper.
The postwar international order has been predicated on the mantra: ‘never again.’ Never again must civilians live in fear of kidnapping, torture, and abuse. We have not fully lived up to that dream, yet it persists, especially in Jews who have often been the victims of lawless regimes and irrational hate. Hamas’s kidnapping of the hostages represents a direct blow to that postwar order. Standing for the hostages was not just an act of solidarity by diaspora Jews. It was a defense of the rule of law, state authority, and democratic responsibility. If Hamas could take Jews in Israel hostage, civilians everywhere were at risk. But if the hostages were safe, all civilians of all nations would be safe.
Back in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, hundreds of thousands had pressed into the square and the surrounding streets. Many were weeping. Others knelt on the ground, unable to stand from emotion. They were celebrating the return of twenty innocent human beings made to endure horrors. But they were also celebrating the return of a sense of dignity and justice that Hamas had robbed not just Israel, but the world of. Back in America, I am sure, they are celebrating the same thing.
By a JIJ Intern
Never Again: The Hostages and Postwar Norms
Gasps echoed through the aisles as the plane touched down in Tel Aviv, and passengers opened their phones for the first time in 12 hours. A man in front of me prayed. The first of the last twenty hostages had been freed! As we stood to exit the plane, all words were of the good news. You didn’t need to know Hebrew, French, or English to hear the exuberant joy and disbelieving relief in the voices.
Waiting for passport control, travelers stood in incredulous awe before the ubiquitous posters of hostages. In front of me in line, an African American tourist turned back to say, “I just feel Israeli today! Who wouldn’t, with a mood like this?” There were no taxis available as the visit by President Trump had shut the highway, but no one seemed to mind. I stopped to buy a train ticket, but an attendant batted me away. “No tickets today! No one should need tickets today!” He lifted the gate and waved me through.
Exiting the train in Tel Aviv, I was surrounded by people singing and dancing in the streets. The skyscrapers were covered in messages of thanksgiving. Hamas had, in their usual cruelty, stretched out the release of the hostages over the whole day, which meant that with each passing moment, there was new good news. Pushed along by the great crowd, I walked towards Hostage Square.
For the last two years, the question of the hostages– the two hundred and fifty-one innocent civilians of thirteen nations, kidnapped and tortured to instill fear in and extract concessions from a democratic state– has dominated Israel. But what nation would not be concerned with a hostage crisis of its own citizens on its own borders?
Significant international attention has been paid to the hostages, especially by Jews of the diaspora, including those with few or no ties to Israel. The horrific antisemitic attack on Boulder Jews this past summer highlighted a remarkable fact: in a small Colorado town, almost two years after the hostages were kidnapped, dozens were still marching weekly to raise awareness of their plight. Posters of the hostages hang across major American cities, patiently reposted after every antisemitic defacement. I met a man in rural New Hampshire who wore a dog tag reading “All of the hostages – now!” in Hebrew and English. He could not read Hebrew and had not attended a synagogue since his bar mitzvah fifty years before, but he felt compelled to keep raising awareness of the plight of the hostages.
It is tempting to argue that this sustained wave of activism by American Jews is nothing new. The majority of American Jews have always been supportive of both Israel and the plight of international Jews. But the attention and empathy paid by American Jews to the hostage crisis represent something deeper.
The postwar international order has been predicated on the mantra: ‘never again.’ Never again must civilians live in fear of kidnapping, torture, and abuse. We have not fully lived up to that dream, yet it persists, especially in Jews who have often been the victims of lawless regimes and irrational hate. Hamas’s kidnapping of the hostages represents a direct blow to that postwar order. Standing for the hostages was not just an act of solidarity by diaspora Jews. It was a defense of the rule of law, state authority, and democratic responsibility. If Hamas could take Jews in Israel hostage, civilians everywhere were at risk. But if the hostages were safe, all civilians of all nations would be safe.
Back in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, hundreds of thousands had pressed into the square and the surrounding streets. Many were weeping. Others knelt on the ground, unable to stand from emotion. They were celebrating the return of twenty innocent human beings made to endure horrors. But they were also celebrating the return of a sense of dignity and justice that Hamas had robbed not just Israel, but the world of. Back in America, I am sure, they are celebrating the same thing.
By a JIJ Intern
A Journey to Poland
Article by Louie Parker intern at the Jerusalem Institute of Justice.
I recently embarked on a trip to Poland as part of the Masa Global Leadership Institute Poland Program. The aim of the trip was to explore both the Jewish and non-Jewish culture and history of Poland, to better understand the Holocaust and to explore the resurgence of Jewish culture and communities in Poland.
The expectations for the trip were somewhat mixed. We were made aware of the fact that this was not a trip dealing solely with the Holocaust, but rather an explorative vignette onto Judaism’s place in historical and modern-day Poland. Moreover, rather than viewing the country through the prism of objective numbers (such as the 6-million Jewish people who lost their lives in the Holocaust), we were aiming to attach a human face to Poland’s history and meet the people actively trying to strengthen their Jewish community.
Upon landing in Warsaw, I was immediately stunned by both the beauty and the modernity of the city. Preconceived ideas of Eastern European dreariness and Bauhaus architecture were replaced by impressive skyscrapers and beautiful remnants of Poland’s imperial past. It resembled something closer to London than St. Petersburg or Moscow.
Poland is a beautiful country. The people there are proud, and justifiably so, of their nation’s achievements throughout the years and famous Polish figures like Chopin and Pope John Paul II. However, there is an undeniable struggle to reconcile the past with the future. How can a country that experienced genocide within the last century project an aura of racial and religious tolerance? Fortunately, based on what we observed, the country is making substantial inroads in strengthening its Jewish community.
In Warsaw, museums such as the Polin Museum are an indispensable source of information on the Jewish people’s 1,000-year history in Poland. The global Jewish community is paying more attention to Poland’s importance, and is investing both finances and individual efforts into strengthening the Jewish minority there. Rabbi Michael Schudrich, who has served as the Chief Rabbi of Poland for over 12 years, is such an example of these rallying efforts.
There is a real fascination with Poland’s pre-war Jewish history amongst tourists and Polish citizens alike. Small Jewish towns, or shtetls, like Tykocin allow a rare insight into the social structures that governed rural Jewish communities for centuries.
Krakow is equally, if not more, beautiful than its Warsaw counterpart. The old central neighbourhood of Kazimierz and its museums and synagogues have been carefully preserved to reflect its historic Jewish character. Encouragingly, there was even a shortage of seating at the Synagogue during their Friday night service.
The Jewish Community Centers in Poland are playing an extremely important role in strengthening the Jewish community, particularly as it relates to the many people who have only recently learned of their distant Jewish heritage and are now questioning their dual-natured Polish-Jewish identity. They organize Shabbat meals and run interfaith dialogue sessions and education seminars on a wide range of topics.
It was certainly an eerie feeling to think, as we were walking the streets of Warsaw and Krakow and taking in the magic of pre-war and post-Soviet Poland’s Jewish culture, that these same places bore witness to the some of the greatest assaults on humanity in history. While we chatted and passed bars and restaurants playing progressive jazz, it was sobering to remember the hundreds of thousands of Jews carted off to death camps from this same very place. It seemed inconceivable that as we walked around the neighbourhood of Podgórze, the Plaszow concentration camp made famous by Schindler’s List was less than 2 kilometers away.
At the Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps, I sifted through the millions of names of those who had perished at the hands of the genocide. I was amazed to see, among the names of my Hungarian ancestors who had perished, the many others who bore the same name – often from the same district of Budapest. It seemed to speak to the enormity of the calamity that befell Europe’s Jewish community and the apparent ease at which multiple lives can be taken away.
Our immensely-experienced guide, Raquel Orenstein of the Yad VaShem Museum, imparted a gem of knowledge unto us. She encouraged those who come to Poland, or those who study the Holocaust, to question the psychological and behavioural underpinnings of what befell the victims of the Holocaust:
- How can one be seduced by a message of hate?
- What are the effects of mob mentality?
- What does it take to murder a fellow human being?
This viewpoint left a lasting impression on me. I found myself exploring the human aspects of the Holocaust, rather than focusing on facts and data. It felt very uncomfortable asking myself ‘had I been a Polish or German citizen, what would I have done? Would I have hidden my Jewish or Roma countrymen and women? Would I have been a partisan, a bystander or an active perpetrator? How easily would our modern conception of benevolence and human rights have been eschewed by the seductive nature of fascism and scapegoating?’
Having these questions in mind made the trip an unforgettable experience. My only advice to any prospective travellers or visitors would be to immerse oneself in a more holistic encounter with Poland. Although the brutality and horror of Poland’s history are both undeniable and unimaginable, the resurgence of Jewish culture and the strengthening of the Jewish community there gives us reason to be hopeful that the relationship between Jews and Poland is not resigned to the history books.