DV Journal

For Chalfont resident Mara Witsen, the Hamas murder of six hostages in a tunnel in Rafah was both breaking news, and heartbreaking.

And so on Wednesday near the courthouse in Doylestown, she and another 100 local residents gathered for a vigil to express their sorrow and to remember the victims, one of whom was an American citizen.

“Like many of you, I have been struggling with what it means to be Jewish in the United States after Oct. 7,” said Witsen. “By gathering here, it lets us all know we’re not isolated in what we’re feeling. And we’re not as alone as the protesters and antisemites want us to feel. It allows us to show the families of every victim that they have our support and our love.”

Attendees prayed, sang and listened to speakers who urged supporters of Israel, and supporters of peace, to remember the victims: American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23; Eden Yerushalmi, 24; Ori Danino, 25; Alexander Lobanov, 32; Carmel Gat, 40; and Almog Sarusi, 27.

A vigil for hostages and other victims of Hamas terrorists was held near the courthouse in Doylestown, Pa. on September 4, 2024

“The families of these six people are living a nightmare which many of us will never fully understand. We also recognize the loss of hundreds of IDF soldiers who have lost their lives in the past 11 months, all in hopes of bringing home these hostages. Their bravery knows no bounds. We pray the remaining hostages will not share their fate,” said Witsen.

More than 60 hostages remain.

Witsen’s grandfather escaped Belgium in 1940 as Nazi paratroopers were invading. “I can’t help but see the parallels [with] Oct 7, the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, as Hamas invaded a music festival via paraglider. In order to keep that promise of ‘Never again,’ we must first never forget. We can never forget the names of these six innocent souls who only wanted peace with their neighbors.”

Doylestown resident Richard Tems, an Army veteran and the son of Holocaust survivors, had a sterner view.

“I served in Germany,” said Tems. “A lot of people say, ‘You can’t kill an idea.’ They’re absolutely right. You can’t kill an idea. But there are very few Nazis left in Germany.”

Tems believes Israel should have sent in tanks to destroy Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 terror attack. On that day, Hamas terrorists joined by Gaza civilians to cross the border and murder, torture, and rape innocent Israeli civilians.

“People say, ‘What about a proportional response?'” Tems said. “When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, they killed a few thousand sailors and Marines. What did we do to them? The Israelis should do the same to Gaza.”

Ellen Cox Bowman is president of the Doylestown Republican Social Club, which organized the vigil.

“Living in this area, we have many, many Jewish people whose hearts are broken. They’ve been affected personally. One of the things I’ve always loved about Israel is Israel welcomes everyone home,” Bowman said. “Even those of us who are not Jewish.”

She visited Israel while serving in the Navy and said the Jewish community center in Staten Island, N.Y. provided childcare for her and her brother while her single mother worked, even though they were Catholic.

Vivi Sadel, an Israeli American whose parents are Holocaust survivors, said her father, Ezra Sherman, died three weeks after Oct. 7. Some of her friends’ families have lived in what is now Israel since the 1800s and co-existed peacefully with their Arab neighbors. “Yes. They were there. There’s no narrative that there were no Jews.”

She described how ordinary people can become heroes when the situation calls for it, including the brave actions of one of her cousins, Amir [Cohen], the southern commander Israeli police chief, whose orders saved many lives and Amer Abu Sabila, 25, a Bedouin who died while saving a woman and her children who were fleeing to safety.

“Amir was shot in the hand and wounded in the eye, but he, himself, killed seven terrorists,” said Sadel.

About the “protests, hatred and out of control immorality” at various colleges and universities. Sadel said, “We need to call them on it…this is a Nazi playbook. This is not World War II. We’re living in America. We need to set the example. Whether we go in and tell the trustees, ‘This is not happening.’” She suggested that those who donate to these colleges stop and that “we pull every single one of our kids out.”

“One way to honor the hostages is to take a stand on right versus wrong, to educate yourself so you can go and educate your community. Wear your Jewish symbols proudly. And to know and understand Israeli history and the history of the Jewish people. Black and white kufiyahs, headscarves, are tokens of Yassir Arafat to destroy Israel. [Chants of] ‘Free, free Palestine’ are code words for destruction of the Jewish state. By the way, 22 Arab states, one Jewish state. Hamas’ charter, which I have in my back pocket, their preamble, destruction of the land of Israel. So, who are we negotiating with?”

“This is not an Israel versus Arab issue,” said Sabel. “This is people who want a caliphate, total control of the Middle East, versus the one Jewish state.”

Bowman put part of the blame for the current Middle East conflict on the Biden-Harris administration.

“This would not have happened under the Trump administration. They fear Trump,” Bowman said of the Hamas attack. “And Biden-Harris have not done enough to protect the hostages.”

There is nothing worse than feeling that a lifeline is being dangled in front of you, sensing it even if you don’t see it, hoping that your nightmare will soon end and you will be home with your family, and then have it all be obliterated in a bloody moment.

There is nothing worse than knowing that your loved one, someone you have been longing to hold and whose name you have yelled from mountaintops and in the presence of powerful people, someone who has become the center of your existence and the purpose of your life, was almost able to grasp that lifeline, but is now forever lost.

That is what happened last weekend when six of the remaining Hamas hostages, who had been held in inhuman conditions in a subterranean tunnel were murdered hours before they might have been rescued by Israel’s IDF.  Those people had survived in hell for almost a year, surviving on whatever reserves of hope and faith they had and which they shared with each other, only to have it end in a shattering moment of vengeance.

I cannot comprehend what those hostages went through, including the one I had come to think of as one of our own, American-born Hersh Goldberg-Polin. I cannot fathom what their families went through as they buried their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, lovers and friends, with the honor and devotion they had been denied since Oct. 7th.

I cannot even understand the mindset of those Israelis who filled the streets to scream out their anger and frustration at Binyamin Netanyahu and his government, who they seem to blame even more than Hamas for the massacre and murder of their fellow citizens (and our own).

But I do understand, through tears, that this cannot go on. I wrote this on Facebook in the moments after I learned of the six most recent murders: “I think back on the recent history of Jewish persecution, when Jews have been targeted for death.

“There are so many examples, but I think of these: Of course, the Holocaust. Millions were murdered by Germany’s Hitler. The West, including the U.S. under FDR, looked the other way. Munich, 1972. Israeli athletes kidnapped and murdered by Hamas’ progenitor, the PLO-Black September. The West was castrated by doubt and incompetence.

The Achille Lauro. Again, the PLO. Murdered a wheelchair-bound American Jew, Leon Klinghoffer, by pushing him overboard. This happened, eerily, on Oct. 7, 1985. The hijacker mastermind, Abu Abbas, was captured, and ultimately released by Italy despite desperate attempts by the Reagan administration to get him extradited to the U.S.

The Nova Music festival. Thirty-eight years to the day after Palestinian terrorists murdered an American citizen, Palestinian terrorists kidnapped Israelis, including Hersh Goldberg, who was one of several U.S. citizens, and murdered many others. All civilians. They ultimately murdered Hersh as well. And Americans and other westerners have filled the streets with protests in support of Hamas’ actions.

This is only a snapshot of a sordid history. But each time a Jewish person, and in some cases an American citizen, has been murdered, there are calls for a ceasefire. In other times it was called appeasement.

That’s over. No more calls for a ceasefire. No more Anne Franks and St. Maximilian Kolbes. No more athletes shot dead in an Olympic village. No more 69 year old men drowning in the ocean, paralyzed and petrified. No more young men and women, come to dance, murdered in cold blood.

RELEASE them NOW. Then we worry about peace. “No release, no peace.”

I would not be screaming for a ceasefire. I would not be seeking appeasement of mad terrorists in Gaza. My empathy for the destruction in the land ruled by Hamas has now been surpassed by my anger at the continued and relentless crusade against Jews, and the way that the West makes excuses and looks away.

No release, no peace.  That is the only way to honor Hersh and his tragic companions.

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