Calumny From Someone Who Should Know Better
Sometimes it's hard to know a friend from an enemy
I have been working on an essay on education for weeks, but I am putting it off again. Sunday I saw a video clip that happened to pop up on my Facebook feed that distressed me. At 5:30 Tuesday I woke up still thinking about it, and knew that I had to write about it. Publishing this will probably get me a huge pile of hate mail, but it needs to be said.
The other day Facebook put in my feed a post, Jewish Crossroads, Jewish Identity in Times of Crisis. The post contained a video with Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of the late Hersh, who was killed while a hostage in Gaza. After listening to the small clip on Facebook, I found the complete interview on YouTube and listened to it.
Mrs. Goldberg-Polin has been outspoken in bringing the plight of the hostages to the world stage. But as difficult as it is to be critical of a grieving mother, her comments demand a rebuttal. In order to understand, you need to understand a bit about who she is.
Although from the short Facebook clip I assumed she was not religious, in the long clip she says her faith is important, that she prays daily, and that she keeps our traditions. The family reportedly belongs to an egalitarian congregation in Jerusalem.i "Egalitarian" means the synagogue does not share the concern for Torah law found in Orthodoxy.
In the long interview Mrs. Goldberg-Polin expresses overt hostility towards several large groups of traditionally observant Jews, blaming them for the government's failure to save the hostages. She speaks as someone who is oblivious to the hundreds of thousands of us who live near the borders of this tiny country and the dangers that we have faced every day, both before and during the war.
Why The War Has To Be About More than Hostages
I've written about many of these things before, but for those who might not remember and those who are new readers, here are some of what those of us living especially close to a border have gone through:
In the south near Gaza, rocket attacks have been weekly, if not daily, for several years. An example of how we survive under these conditions: a huge reinforced indoor playground in the city of Sderot is in constant use by parents who cannot safely let their children play outside.
At the beginning of the war, my community was blacked out briefly (all streetlights shut off) and we were instructed to shut our shutters and turn off all our lights because there was suspicion of terrorists in the area. This happened only once and only lasted about 15 minutes, but it was absolutely terrifying occurring, as it did, only a day or two after the Oct. 7 massacre.
It was discovered by our troops that Hezbollah had detailed plans of carrying out the same kind of attack in the north that Hamas carried out on October 7. Use your imagination to guess how secure we now feel in our homes.
Within a week or two of moving here, I was told to keep bottled water, some nonperishable food, and a strong flashlight available in case of trouble.
Newcomers are also instructed what to do in case of a rocket attack alarm, including finding our nearest shelter if we do not have our own secure room.
Every year information specialists from the army speak to every elementary school about how to respond to emergencies--fires, earthquakes, rocket attacks, and two other possible disasters.
During the war we were frequently subject to missile/rocket attacks when we had 5 seconds in which to find shelter and wait ten minutes (for shrapnel from the Iron Dome's destruction of the rocket to fall to the ground). The house next to a friend's home received a direct hit from a missile itself. A vacant lot two doors over the other way remains from where a house was destroyed by a missile during the last Hezbollah-Israel confrontation. (The view from my friend's home is spectacular, but the border with Lebanon runs along the top of this gorgeous ridge.)
The sounds of artillery reverberated through the mountains, sometimes many times a day, during the worst of the Hezbollah war. We still hear occasional booms.
Those of us near the border understand that heartbreaking as the truth is, the well-being of hundreds of thousands must take priority over the suffering of a few. For millenia, Jewish sages have been very clear that while we should ransom those kidnapped and held for money, we should not do so if it is likely that the ransom price will be too high, or if it will only encourage further kidnapping.
Leftist governments have made sure that most Israelis (those whose heads are not stuck in their politics) understand the wisdom of these ancient decisions. Just one example: about 13 years ago, the late Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the October 7 massacre, was freed from an Israeli prison where he was serving a life sentence for terrorism. He was part of a massive prisoner release in exchange for one (yes, one) hostage. This winter, nearly 2,000 terrorists were released from prisonii as part of the deal that secured the release of the handful of hostages freed by Hamas.
Some of the freed terrorists had been jailed for their involvement in the bus bombings that occurred throughout Israel in the 1990s, killing and maiming thousands. Shortly after the release of the bombers this winter, several buses were bombed. Only a 12-hour error saved lives: the bombs were accidentally set for 9 pm rather than 9 am. Choosing to protect the many instead of the few is part of Jewish law, as painful as this may be.
While hostile to most traditional Jewish groups, Mrs. Goldberg-Polin is especially outspoken in her dislike of Religious Zionists because of their role in supporting the government's position: that defeating Hamas and Hezbollah is the most important goal of the war. The Religious Zionists, whose young men and women make up a disproportionately high percentage of combat troops, have consequently suffered the largest number of soldier deaths and injuries.
A high proportion of Jews who have choseniii to live near the borders are Religious Zionists. They believe it is important to strengthen the Jewish presence throughout Israel. The northern border region, where I live, is home to many Muslim and Christian Arabs, Circassians, Druze, and others. Here, we live, work, and shop peacefully together.
The Clip That Triggered Me
Here is the short video clip that appeared on Facebook, transcribed by me. Speaking of the hostages Mrs. Goldberg-Polin says:
"...It almost sounds like a broken record when we say, 'They're out of time, and time is running out.' It is true. They are out of time, and time is running out. And we have been saying that for 545 days, and every single day it's true. And I just. The thought I've been feeling, what is it this morning? What is it? What is this sensation? I feel dread, I feel dreadful in the most literal sense of the word. I feel full of all the dread that everyone is excited about Pesach. Everyone's excited about the holiday of Passover that's next week. This holiday that commemorates freedom. Freedom from bondage. And the absolute inappropriateness of commemorating this holiday with 59 beloved human beings, 24 of whom are in active bondage, in shackles, starving, being tortured, while we're thinking that we're going to be sitting around a table, singing songs and drinking wine [said in a sing-song, sarcastic way], just feels absolutely perverse to me."
Are we Jews unfeeling party animals to whom the hostages mean nothing, to whom the holiday commemorating the seminal moment in the creation of the Jewish people is nothing but an excuse to get drunk and sing stupid songs? This is just what we need: another outspoken Jew with a huge platform telling the world what useless, selfish, horrible people we and our religion are.
Passover: What is it?
Many years ago I heard this: "The cornerstone of Christianity is, 'Jesus died for your sins.' The cornerstone of Islam is, 'Convert or die.' And the cornerstone of Judaism is, 'God took us (the Jewish people) out of bondage into freedom.'"
Passover is the commemoration of the night that the Angel of Death passed over the homes of the Jews and killed the first-born of the Egyptians. This was a tragedy of unbelievable proportion that led the Pharaoh to let the Jewish slaves leave, and led the Egyptian people to give to the Jews gold, silver, jewels, and other valuables. These were later donated to build the Mishkaniv, the traveling tabernacle that was God's dwelling place on earth (see my story, Becoming Family). But it is far more than a mere recital of ancient history.
At the Passover seder, the story of the Exodus is read from a book called the Haggadah. The Ten Plagues are recited. Unlike Palestinian Arabs, who danced in the streets when word of the October 7 massacre reached them, religious Jews do not rejoice at the defeat of their enemies. One example of a place where mourning the deaths of our enemies is institutionalized is in the Haggadah, which directs us to remove a bit of wine from our goblet as each plague is mentioned. While there are many reasons for this, one is that our joy cannot be complete because of the suffering of the Egyptian people from the plagues which culminated in deaths of every first-born.v
The seder has been celebrated throughout Jewish history, millennia filled with bleak moments when the Jews were anything but free to live happy lives filled with the drunkenness and carefree attitude of which Goldberg-Polin accuses us.
My last year's Passover story, Passover Suitcase, is fiction but based on a true story of Jewish persecution in the Soviet Union.
There are countless stories of Holocaust victims whose normal diet in the camps was a crust of bread and a bit of weak soup, yet they refused to eat the bread during Passover since not eating hametz was the only holiday mitzvah they could keep.
Several of the freed hostages have reported that keeping the memory of the Passover seder alive, although holding a seder was impossible, gave them courage to continue living in spite of starvation, shackles, and torture.
The message of the holiday, that God frees the Jews and brings us from bondage to freedom, is eternal. Time is cyclic. The one sure thing is that everything changes. “What goes around, comes around.” ”FAFO.” The Soviet Union, which prohibited Jewish practice, lasted about 70 miserable years--and ended. Today Jewish communities thrive in many European cities that less than 100 years ago were places of mass Jewish deportation and death. The concentration camps ended; many survivors made their way to the United States, Canada, Australia, and Israel, where their descendants raise strong Jewish families.
Yes there is bondage, says the Seder, and it is followed by freedom. As the Haggadah says:
"This is what has stood by our fathers and us! For not just one alone has risen against us to destroy us, but in every generation they rise against us to destroy us; and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hand!"
And later: "Thus it is our duty to thank, to laud, to praise...the One who did all these miracles for our fathers and for us. He took us from slavery to freedom, from sorrow to joy, and from mourning to festivity, and from deep darkness to great light, and from bondage to redemption. Let us therefore recite before Him Halleluyah, Praise G-d!"
Near the end: You have redeemed us from Egypt, You have freed us from the house of bondage, You have fed us in famine and nourished us in plenty; You have saved us from the sword and delivered us from pestilence, and raised us from evil and lasting maladies. Until now Your mercies have helped us, and Your kindnesses have not forsaken us; and do not abandon us, L‑rd our G‑d, forever!
Here's the truth
My American Jewish friends (as well as many non-Jews) are praying for the release of the hostages. They cried when Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were returned to us in coffins. When Biden stopped the shipment of materiel needed by our army, they dug deeply into their pockets to provide what was needed. Some voted Republican for the first time in their lives because they were appalled at the way the Hamas riots were ignored by the US government. Many American Jews know that Netanyahu cannot simply free the hostages, as Goldberg-Polin seems to think.
Here in Israel, in synagogues and at home we pray daily for the freeing of the hostages and the healing of the bodies and souls of every Israeli injured and/or imprisoned in this war. We have given, and continue to give, our time and money as well as our prayers to support our army and our government at this difficult time. Many of us will undoubtedly repeat what we did last year at Passover: put a sign with the hostage symbol of a yellow ribbon on a chair, and put the empty chair at our seder table to indicate those still missing.
And we will recite the Haggadah, as we have for thousands of years, thanking God for bringing us out of slavery in Egypt, out of Spain and Portugal in the Inquisition, for leaving a remnant of European Jews alive in spite of the best efforts of the Nazis to eradicate them; for freeing the Ethiopian Jews and the Bene Menshe who were persecuted for generations in northeastern India. And we will be reminding God that we trust Him to bring us all--hostages of Hamas, our war widows and orphans, and American and other Jews subjected to vicious anti-semitic attacks, out of the present difficulties as well.
As for Mrs. Goldberg-Polin, she is trashing the elected government of Israel and the Jewish people, condemning us for celebrating the sacred holiday of Passover, and portraying us as thoughtless, shallow drunks. In the complete interview she soundly condemns those of us who are more concerned with the safety of the general population of Israel than in rescuing the small number of hostages, as appalling and tragic as their plight is.
I want to end by pointing out a truth I would never have considered had this woman not defamed the Jewish people and our sacred holiday of Passover. In the Hebrew year 5784, on Simchat Torah, the holiday during which we read the last section of the Torah and then begin reading at the beginning, Hersh Goldberg-Polin participated in a music-and-dance festival.vi In so doing he desecrated the holy day. Had he celebrated the holiday at his family's synagogue in Jerusalem he would not have been in the path of Hamas, and he would be alive today.
Yes, the hostages should be freed. Yes, the conditions under which they are barely surviving are horrendous. Yes, the bodies of those already dead should be returned to their families for proper burial. But those who attended the music festival made a choice, and sometimes choices have terrible consequences. Those of us whose choice is to provide a Jewish presence at the edges of this tiny land, providing a buffer between our enemies and the majority of the population, also deserve the protection of the government.
And the vast majority of those of us who will celebrate Passover with a seder that includes songs and wine will, at some point in the service, mention the hostages. They are too much on everyone's mind, and their plight is too parallel to the story we will recite, for them to be forgotten.
These are some things that Mrs. Goldberg-Polin, for all her exhortation to the rest of us, seems to have forgotten.
i Danan, D., At the Jerusalem Synagogue..., JTA.org, Sept. 1, 2024. https://www.jta.org/2024/09/01/israel/in-the-courtyard-where-hersh-goldberg-polin-danced-on-oct-6-grief-and-anger-reign-after-his-death
ii Fabian, E., Israel to free up to 1,904 Palestinians in 1st stage of hostage deal, including killers. Times of Israel, Jan. 18, 2025. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-free-1904-palestinians-in-1st-stage-of-hostage-deal-including-killers/
iii Many border communities are now the second- and third-generation homes of Jews from the Arab lands. The first settlers did not choose the location. The Jews from North Africa and the Middle East, called "Sephardim" or "Mizrachi," were largely devout. Having been separated by time and distance and surrounded by Arabs, for hundreds and in some cases thousands of years, their culture was very different from that of the Russian- and eastern-Europe-born leaders of Israel, who were secular socialists. When the Mizrachim were expelled from their homelands and came to Israel, a high percentage were trucked to the border areas. People in my community who were children then remember their families being dumped on a barren hill during the night and housed in tiny, rudimentary shacks. They were badly discriminated against for a generation or two and are still held in disdain by a segment of Israeli society. In many communities, mine included, they are the dominant group. Of the non-Mizrachi religious here, the Religious Zionists predominate.
iv Exodus 12:35-36
v Shurpin, Y., Why Do We Spill Wine at the Seder? Chabad.org, https://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/4347492/jewish/Why-Do-We-Spill-wine-at-the-Seder.htm
vi Gan, Nectar, Hersh Goldberg-Polin: The "happy-go-lucky" Israeli-American who became a symbol of Israel's enduring hostage heartbreak. CNN, updated Sept. 1, 2024, https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/01/middleeast/israel-gaza-hostage-polin-goldberg-profile-intl-hnk/index.html .
Thank you for responding to that difficult post. I appreciate the way you handled it with concern and grace.