We Have not Forgotten the Stranger Among Us
There have been countless articles, podcasts and news segments about people, not Jews or Israelis, who have supported Israel with their prayers, dollars and voices since October 7th. The Jewish community is grateful and consoled by their support, especially when there is, at the same time, constant anti-Jewish vitriol coming from nearly every corner of the world.
During this same period, we, too, here in Israel, have kept the fate of those beyond the Jewish community – foreign workers, Arabs, Bedouins – in our prayers and calls for the release of the hostages and justice. Somehow, news outlets, especially abroad, have overlooked the fact that at every demonstration, every public event meant to sustain awareness of those still in captivity – whether it’s a seder table or sukkah in the middle of Tel Aviv or rows of chairs in the National Library in Jerusalem – displays the names of faces of all of the hostages, regardless of their nationality or religion. These images are inseparable from those of Jewish Israelis.
This inclusion struck me during the last few Shabbatot. During the prayer for the recovery and healing of the sick, our synagogue always includes a special prayer for the hostages. Everyone in attendance is given specific names to recite, so in addition to our general prayer, there is a plea for every individual hostage. Recently, the names I have been given were for men from Thailand. With the same words, intensity and heartbreak, all of us proffer our prayers for the collective and our assigned individuals no matter where they were born or how they worship. By reciting the names of each captive, we are stating that full return of those in the hellish captivity of Hamas will not be over until every single person is freed, whether that individual is a Jew, Muslim, Christian or Buddhist.
Until now, the last and eighth hostage to be rescued from Gaza was a Bedouin, Qaid Farhan Alkadi. In an operation that undoubtedly put Israeli soldiers lives in jeopardy, the 52-year-old man was extracted from a tunnel, where he had been kept imprisoned for 8 months. Despite the outsized attention granted to a small minority of Jews, I believe that the bulk of the Jewish people is indescribably proud of the IDF and our soldiers, men and women to whom we literally owe our every waking breath. And, I am likewise proud to be amongst Jews, who even in this time of war, grief and stress, are dedicated to those whose tragic fate has been bound to ours and whose redemption, we pray, we will likewise share.