Ever wonder why the earth continues to spin or the sun continues to shine?

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.

Israel asked that the conference be canceled because Israeli officials had been told that, "Turkey has threatened not only the severing of diplomatic relations with Israel but also the lives and livelihood of the 18,000 Jews in Turkey."

Elie Wiesel pulled out of the conference as did 150 of the 400 attendees. The conference was held in any case, the Armenian genocide was the first topic discussed. Turkey would later deny the threat against the Jewish community had been made.

But for me that morning, sitting at the table and reading that Turkey had threatened the "lives and livelihood of the 18,000 Jews" in Turkey, my world stopped. I looked around me as I held the paper. Everyone was eating, talking...I couldn't stand it.

I stood up and walked out the front door of the dorm and was shocked to see the sun shining and hear the noise of early morning NY City traffic all around me.

How was it possible, I wondered, that the world continued to move, as if the ground had not shaken, as if 18,000 Jews had not just been threatened? I don't know, I don't remember how long I saw there just listening to the world, begging them to be as shocked as I was.

I don't remember if I went back to the dining room, or classes that day.

But this is how I feel today - Israel cannot free the hostages. We can flatten Gaza and likely kill the few remaining living hostages and bring their bodies home...but we cannot bring them back alive until they are released.

But the world can.

Why is the sun shining? Why does the world continue to turn. Jews are being tortured and starved to death.

I've never understood why the Jews in Turkey remained after that threat in 1982. The few times that I traveled through Istanbul before this war made it a stupid and dangerous thing to do, I remembered that threat.

On a day when Jews are being starved, where is the world? And by extension, where has the world been since October 7?

In 1982, Turkey threatened the "lives and livelihood" of the Jews in Turkey. In 2023, Gaza took the lives of more than 1,200 Jews in Israel.

How does the sun still shine?