A Soldier's Mother

As I awakened this morning, my first thoughts were of the hostages. The hostages and a memory. On June 3, 1982, I was sitting in the dining room of my dorm at Columbia University. It was back in the time when Jews felt safe at Columbia and could worry about other Jews in the world, rather than their own safety as they must today.

And there, at the bottom of the page was an article that shattered my heart. The article's title caught my attention, "ISRAELIS SAID TO OPPOSE PARLEY AFTER THREAT TO TURKISH JEWS". The "parley" was a conference on genocide and Turkey didn't want the Armenian genocide to be discussed.

Even people in pain, have a responsibility for the words they say, the hurt they cause. And I know the families of four men brought home last night are in agony. But even in agony, they have no right to harm others.

I know that Danny Elgart now faces a future he hoped would be different.

Here in Israel and all over the world - Brazil, France, US, Hungary...so many other places I can't remember, they are turning buildings orange to pay their respects to Shiri, Ariel and Kfir and I'm not reacting well at all.

What good are orange buildings when angry demands might have brought them home sooner? It pains me that the families continue to demand Israel BRING THEM HOME.

A message to Shiri Bibas, whose body has finally been returned to Israel.

We have you, Shiri, you're home. Your babies are home. Yarden is home. Now you can rest.

You fought like a lioness to save your babies. No mother can match your strength, your love, your bravery. You will be remembered in the annals of our people along with Sarah, Rifka, Leah and Rachel. Miriam, Devorah, Esther...and Shiri.

Hold your sons for us, sing to them as they sleep.

Hamas is ready to have their damn ceremony with the International Committee of the Red Cross taxi service. Four bodies will be returned. We do not know who is being returned because knowing would involve trusting/believing a terrorist organization comprised of Nazi savages. So we don't KNOW. We fear.

Today we do not have to fear that the murdered-in-cold-blood hostages will be harmed by the swarming savages eager to take their picture.

There is today in Israel, a huge elephant in every room, in every conversation, in every heart. We can't see past him, we can't breathe. He is standing on our lungs, on our hearts. And still we manage to fear, to cry without stop.

We cannot think. We are angry when others say the words we do not want to hear. Have some decency. The end of the story is not yours to tell, but ours to pray for.

Baby Kfir, I have been praying for you for 16 months.

Mosab Abu Toha begs for the world to rebuild his Gaza. The New Yorker delivers his plea, highlights it, promotes it. He says "we need" and expects the world to response.

He speaks of the children who have missed 16 month of learning...only the children of his nation, not ours. Not the children his people burned to death, terrorized, raped, burned. Not the orphans of our people who watched their parents murdered, pulled into captivity.

Our children too missed schools.

This is Alex. He is...was...14-years-old. Look into his eyes...he was murdered by an Islamist terrorist in Austria...one seeking asylum from Syria.

He was from Austria. He was not a Jew, an Israeli. He was just a boy, an Austrian. A European. He did nothing.

Benjamin Achimeir did nothing. He was a Jew. An Israeli. Just a boy. Like, Alex, he was 14 when he was murdered by Muslim extremists. Asher Natan was shot and murdered in Jerusalem. A Jew. A child. He too was just 14.

I've thought about this - more times than I would like to admit. It is in all of our 

What I would not do...

I would not undermine the Israel government and weaken them in the minds of the world and the enemy.

I would not give the enemy the satisfaction of believing they could get deals of 1000 to 1 or even 50 to one.

Before Elie went to war the first time, there were days of uncertainty. Would his unit be sent to Gaza to help quell the mounting number or rockets being fired at Israel? Would his unit be sent to the north, where Nasrallah (may he rot in hell and may his name be erased for all eternity), was promising to set the north on fire.

I sat down before my computer, but couldn't think. And so I did then, what I still often do, I began to write. I wrote What I Want and What I'll Do.

Today, it's harder.