Today has been a day focused on stories.  I have found that stories have the most impact and do my best to be a storyteller throughout my career.  As I continue to focus on what’s happening in the war between Israel and Hamas, I find myself captivated by the stories that are now coming out.  Some are sad.  Some are uplifting.  Some are horrifying.  They all are powerful.

When I woke up this morning and began my morning routine of reading various news sources that I like to read (The Free Press, Daniel Gordis and Kareem Abdul Jabbar on substack, 1040 Daily Digest, eJewishPhilanthropy, Jewish Insider Daily, Philanthropy Today, FLAME, and all my sports news), I was struck immediately by the story of Iris Haim. 

Iris’s son Yotam was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7^th and brought into Gaza.  He and two others managed to escape and were thought to be terrorists and mistakenly killed by IDF soldiers the other day.  It’s a heartbreaking story.  And yet just days later, here is Iris speaking out to the IDF soldiers who mistakenly killed her son, telling them that she loves them.  That she wants them to visit her so she can give them a hug.  That she knows in the moment they did what they thought was right and what was needed.  Tears came to my eyes as I looked at the picture of her and Yotam while listening to her place the blame where it belongs, on Hamas for taking her son hostage, and sending love to the IDF soldiers.  I can’t imagine what she is going through nor what the IDF soldiers are going through.  It was an extraordinary expression of forgiveness and love.  I had tears in my eyes and have watched in many times to see true humanity.  You can watch the video and below it see her on TV just a few weeks ago talking about Yotam and IDF soldiers who were killed. 

I continued to explore the news and saw a horrific story about the music festival.  Hamas terrorists took the phone of an Israeli at the festival, used his facial recognition to open it, and videoed their torture of him (I won’t write what they did but you can watch the video and learn) and the murder of 9 others at the festival.  They then used his WhatsApp to send the video to all of his friends and then sent it to him mother.  I can’t imagine what his mother thought when she got a message from him, knowing he was at the festival that was under attack, opened it, and saw her son being tortured, mutilated, and humiliated and other friends being murdered.  The brutality is astounding.  I went from being inspired and overwhelmed by love to pure anger and rage.  This is why Israel can’t stop until Hamas is removed and their leadership eliminated.  They are pure evil.  Here is the video that I watched – remember there is graphic description of what happened so be prepared.

As my day came to a close, I read two more stories.  The first was about 85-year-old Yaffa Adar, who shared her story of how she survived 49 days in Hamas captivity.  “Every morning, I’d sing to myself Bocelli and say, ‘God, maybe this will bring a good day. Maybe today will bring [my release],’” she recalled, admitting that for a long time that day never came.

It reminded me of the story of Osama who I met in 2019 and was involved with Combatants for Peace.  He life was changed when he was at his lowest point in prison and was ready to give up when he heard somebody humming a song.  That music gave him hope.  A few years later, at his first Shabbat dinner, they began by singing Shalom Aleichem.  Osama broke down in tears because he realized this was the song that saved his life. 

This story inspired Andrea Bocelli as well, who wrote to Yaffa.  You can read about it and what Bocelli wrote to Yaffa here.  It’s a powerful statement about the power of music and the understanding that our actions and what we give to the world may have much more power than we ever imagine at the time we are doing.

The final story comes from a friend of mine, Sherri Mandell.  Her husband, Rabbi Seth Mandell, was the Hillel Director when I was at Penn State, but I didn’t go to Hillel and never met him there.  He left to be the Hillel Director at University of Maryland, where one of my best friends worked for him.  He later made Aliyah and lived in Tekoah. In May 2001, while living in Tekoah, his 13-year-old son, Koby Mandell, and his friend Yosef Ish Ran were murdered by terrorists near their home.   They started the Koby Mandell Foundation and that’s how and when I met Sherri and Seth. 

In the article today, she writes about how the Israeli government asked permission to show pictures of Koby and Yosef in 2001 and they declined, thinking it would be too hard on them and their family to have them public.  In the aftermath of October 7^th, she questions the decision back then and grapples with the balance between personal need and the need for the world to see these atrocities because it didn’t take 30 days for people to begin denying they occurred.  It’s a powerful piece by a mother who has unfortunately dealt with this personally.  Sherri’s book, The Blessing of a Broken Heart , is the most painful book I have ever tried to read  I say tried to read because as a father, I had to put it down about halfway through because my heart was breaking and I was crying.  I tried to get through it out of a feeling of obligation, but I couldn’t.  As I read the piece by Sherri, I found myself thinking of visiting them at their home, meeting their other children, listening to them speak about Koby and the work of the foundation, my own children, and the world we live in today 

Two stories were uplifting. One was horrifying. One filled with sadness. All are emotional. As my day comes to a close, I find myself wondering both if and when we can all find the blessing of our broken hearts.