December 15: A Day of Hope

Last Sunday and the two Sundays before that, I went to a rally at the National Mall in Washington, DC. Don’t picture the rally that brought thousands of people together to the same site in November of 2023 shortly after the October 7^th massacres. I was at that one too. People called me up to see if they could stay in my house in Silver Spring, a Washington, DC suburb so that they could come to the rally. Ishay Ribo was there. American political leaders from both sides of the aisle gave speeches. I imagine that everyone who attended will remember that they were there. It made the news in Israel, and it felt like we were reaching out to our Israeli brothers and sisters and holding hands across the ocean.

Of course, there have been many other important rallies and gatherings in many other places in the United States and in DC since then. As significant as they are, it is unlikely that any have had the power of that first one — where people dropped everything so that they could come. It is hard to do that on a regular basis. Also, in the fourteen months since the hostages were taken, fault lines have opened in the Jewish community and our unified stance has weakened.

We do agree on this. The hostages should come home. So, every Sunday in DC, by my estimate, between 25-50 people holding signs with pictures of hostages come together and chant ‘What do we want? All of them. When do we want them? Now.

Family members of hostages come to the DC area to lobby congress and to apply pressure wherever they can on behalf of their loved ones. When they are in town, they often come to these rallies. This past week, Aviva Siegel spoke as did Yarden Gonen, sister of hostage Romi Gonen. Aviva told the crowd that her husband Keith, a hostage in Gaza, is an evangelizing vegetarian. Yarden recalled how other released hostages told her family that Romi comforted them and kept them strong. One of the rally organizers read all the names of the remaining hostages, one by one. Some people approached a hostage relative to tell them they are not alone.

These rallies remind me of rallies I attended back in 2012-2015 on behalf of Alan Gross, a Jewish man falsely accused of being an American spy and imprisoned in Cuba for five years. These rallies took place weekly in front of the Swiss Embassy where the United States Interest Section in Havana Cuba then resided.  These too were small affairs. We carried signs and chanted ‘Free Alan Gross NOW’. They went on for so long that the group of regulars got to know each other and formed a small community. We didn’t make a lot of noise, but Alan’s family heard us, and we later found out that Alan knew about efforts too.

I was at a party for pediatric patients on December 15, 2015, the first day of Chanukah, when I got a call from one of my children.’ Mom, did you hear?’ Alan Gross is free. It is a Chanukah miracle.’ I was speechless. Just like that, the rallies were over and plans for a welcome home celebration were underway. Our despair changed to rejoicing.

This coming Sunday is December 15^th, the nine-year anniversary of Alan Gross’s release.  For me it is a reminder that miracles happen and that things can change for the better in what seems like an instant. If all the hostages have not been released from Gaza by then, there will be another rally at the National Mall on Sunday demanding their release.   If you live or will be in the D.C. area maybe you can picture yourself coming and standing shoulder to shoulder with others who believe that this reality must change for the better.  As Yarden Gonen told us last week, when she sees pictures of people, actual living breathing people at these rallies, she knows Romi and her family are not forgotten and she can breathe. Giving breath? It is the least we can do.