Letter to Hostages' Parents

Dear Parents of the hostages by Hamas,

I want you to know that I also as a Jewish mother join you in grieving over your children still being held by the Hamas Terrorists.  Our children are our most important persons to us in this world.  To have any tsuris connecting to them is too horrible to imagine.  

The haunting images of Israeli hostages being held captive by Hamas are stark reminders of the horrors they have endured for more than 660 days. The immediate release of all hostages from Gaza is my prayer. My deepest thoughts are with all the hostages still held from Canada, USA, and the 23 other countries as well as their families and loved ones.

More than half of the approximately 250 hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023, held foreign passports, representing 25 different countries. You may not have been aware of any dangers since the children themselves thought they were safe.  Some of the countries whose citizens were taken hostage include:  Argentina, China, France, Germany, Nepal, Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, United States, and United Kingdom .  Many of the individuals with foreign passports also held Israeli citizenship. Additionally, some of the hostages were foreign workers in Israel, primarily in the agriculture sector.

                           Here we are at our bon voyage party my mother gave for us

I made Aliyah in 1980 with my husband and German shepherd.  We both were teachers; Danny originally from Brooklyn, New York who met me in Ontario, Oregon, and we married, being the only Jews in that town, really.  Events happened that brought us to making Aliyah and we moved to Haifa going to school for New Olim for 10 months, then onto Tzfat/Safed.  My adult son remained in Portland, Oregon.  We were dedicated religiously and nationally.  We were teachers and Danny with the Master's taught English in high school while I taught English in Jr. High.  

Then my son became ill back in Portland and none of the doctors could find out the cause, so his wife wrote to us begging us to return, and with great sadness, we did, because as a mother, I could do no other thing than return.  It was the right thing to do since he became better with a new doctor who used a new technique in fighting bacteria by overdosing with a type of med that remains blurry in my mind, and he became so much better that he was able to finally live his life once more.  

There you are in Israel, being the bravest of any people on this planet, many living in Israel amidst all the danger of terrorism surrounding you, and when you should be given a medal for having made such a decision, find your child not only in danger, but having been taken away from you while celebrating a Jewish holiday when  dancing in celebration with friends, being happy and celebrating LIFE, is just too much to even imagine.  

You knew of our history, and had either been a Sabra or had also made Aliyah, or whose child was just visiting;   making that same decision I did , but probably  never expecting anything bad to happen.                                                          

  Here I am in my Safed apartment which is across the street from my junior high.  We have the main floor apartment and can use the mirpeset outside to hang clothes.  It came with bars on the only window of our living room.  The sofa is a bed with a throw on it.  We just moved in as the picture shows.  It's 1981.  In Israel, a "mirpeset" (pronounced meer-peset) is a Hebrew term for a balcony or veranda. These spaces are commonly used for a variety of purposes, including, as I  mentioned, hanging clothes to dry. 

With us, we had been shaken up with anti-Semitism happening in our little town of Ontario with Skinheads moving in from Boise, Idaho, known to be anti-Semitic and reserving a room for meetings in my husband's favorite restaurant where his Kiwanis group met every week.  They had called him asking what to do !  That and a comic book of anti-Semitism was circulating in his high school and brought to his history class.  The next thing I did was fly back to Portland to speak with the Shaliach there who made our plans for us to leave for Israel, a permanent move.  I was leaving my mother and large family.  We had never visited Israel but wanted to get there, especially when we found out that they needed real English teachers.  

To have your loved one, your family caught in this several years of planning by terrorists, attacking the very families they may even have worked for, knew, and then kidnapping them as hostages is incomprehensible.  Our good fortune of living in Israel from 1980 to the very end of 1985 was that at the time, unknown to us, Iran was at war with Iraq, and it kept them away from Israel.  I never dreamed that this could happen in 2023, 43 years later.

 May G-d give you the courage and strength to live through this.  We're all praying for a miracle to happen, and that all IDF searching for them will stay safe as well.  

All the best,

Nadene Goldfoot