Keeping hope alive

“Hope is mandatory.” — Rachel Goldberg-Polin

(Image courtesy of author)

In this moment of grief, as I mourn with the rest of the Jewish community, I still want to keep hope alive, to hold on to the hope that I found in my community over the past year, a hope that continues to lift my spirits, even as I mourn our losses. 

I remember going to mail a package at the Highland Park (IL) Post Office a week or so after the hostages had been taken last October. It was crowded, and as I stood on line, waiting my turn, I noticed the fingernails on the woman standing in front of me. She might have been in her sixties, maybe older, and she was holding a small box in her hands. Each of her fingernails had been painted a beautiful shade of blue. 

I complimented her on the color and, curious, asked if she was honoring her alma mater or her favorite football team. “No, no,” she said. Then, hesitating a moment, she took a long look at me before deciding to respond to my question. Something in my expression —perhaps she could tell that I was Jewish— must have put her at ease, and she held up her hand to show me her fingernails and said, “No, it’s for Israel and the hostages.” 

When she said the word “Israel,” I felt my heart melt. I wasn’t even aware that I was in need of comfort, of hope. It was as if she’d given me a precious gift, a sense of belonging in a world that had turned against us after October 7th. In my mind I could see a picture of  the Israeli flag with its blue Star of David and blue stripes, the same color blue as her nail polish. As she took her package and stepped up to the counter, I wondered how many other Jews felt the same way as her—proud of Israel and of being Jewish, and wanting to do something, to express their feelings in some small way, to show solidarity with the hostages and Israel.

Later in the week I remember going for a run on the Green Bay Trail and finding a handful of posters someone had taped to the trees. The word “KIDNAPPED” had been printed across the top of the posters, which showed the faces and names of a handful of the Israeli hostages. As I read the names, I felt anger, sadness, a painful sense of helplessness and loss, but also a strange sense of being connected in some mysterious way to other Jews.

A few months later I remember feeling the same sense of connection when I stepped off the commuter train. Across the street from the station I noticed an apartment building with a dozen small Israeli flags displayed in the second-floor windows. I had no idea who lived in that apartment, just as I didn’t know the people who owned the houses in town that displayed Israeli flags and signs on their front yards saying “Bring Them Home Now” or “We stand with Israel.” But all of these signs of support and love for Israel, this deep caring for the hostages, helped me feel that the world hadn’t forgotten us or our suffering. The expressions of caring reminded me that not everyone had turned against us.

(Image courtesy of author)

I don’t know how else to keep my hope alive now other than to write these words, to offer my thanks to strangers for offering a small measure of hope in a world that turned dark and almost hopeless on October 7th, and which turned even darker this week, almost a year later, as the names of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino became part of the memorials that are being recited around the world this week. 

All of the expressions of solidarity and support, small as they may be, have helped fuel my hope. They have let me know that I am not alone but a member of a large and loving family. They have reminded me that, in the face of tragedy, all Jews are connected, and that all of us are linked, whether Jew, Muslim, Christian, or followers of faiths that I don’t even know, each of us, connected, human to human.

And so, thanks to such inspirations of hope, I continue to hope … that the remaining hostages will be free to return in safety to their families and loved ones … and that one day peace will come.

After so many months, I am trying, like so many others, to keep hope alive.