It amazes me how the world chooses to forget and ignore the 101 hostages remaining in Gaza. When Iran held 52 American hostages for over a year, the world paid attention every single day. The TV show Nightline was created specifically for nightly updates on the hostage crisis. As a child, I remember the daily concern and stayed home from school as Ronald Reagan was inaugurated and the hostages were released, just to watch it happen and get the updates.

The 101 hostages, including 7 Americans, have been held for 422 days, close to them being held as long as Iran held the hostages from 1979 to 1981 (444 days). Yet the world remains largely silent. In August 2024, six of the hostages were brutally murdered by Hamas. None of the American hostages Iran took in 1979 were murdered. The world was outraged then and is quiet now.

Yesterday, Hamas released a video of Edan Alexander, one of the 7 Americans still being held hostage. It’s hard to watch. What is harder for me is the realization that for the 420 days that he has been held, America has largely forgotten him and the other 6 Americans. Other countries demanded Hamas release their hostages over a year ago and Hamas complied. America has not. It’s an embarassment. It’s horrifying. They have been allowed by our leaders to remain hostages simply because they are Jews.

Recently I wrote and posted the video of released hostage Mia Schem talking at the UN. She urged people to look at her and realize it isn’t too late to save the current hostages. The sign below in a neighborhood in Jerusalem uses the memory of Hersch Goldberg-Polin (z’l) to remind us of the same thing. We cannot forget the hostages. We cannot allow them to remain brutalized and in captivity by Hamas. We must ensure they are released and returned to Israel – all of them, alive or dead. I urge you to do something and say something about the hostages every day. Remind yourself and others of their plight. I say the Achenu prayer daily to remind myself. I wear my yellow ribbon pin. I wear my dogtags. We owe it to them.

In Israel, the reminder of the hostages is daily. It’s everywhere. It is overwhelming, as it should be. Released hostages Raz Ben Ami and Gabriela Leimberg (left); Michel Illouz, father of the late Guy Illouz whose body is held in Gaza; released hostage Danielle Aloni; and Yifat Zailer, cousin of hostage Shiri Bibas, spoke yesterday at an event marking one year since the first and only hostage deal took place. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since that deal happened. I remember watching it closely as the cousins of my friends were scheduled to be released. I remember sitting on pins and needs as I waited for confirmation that they had been released and then for reports on their health and safety. This should be the headline on the news. This should be above the fold in our newspapers. Because the hostages are mostly Jewish (note they are not all Jewish), the world doesn’t care. If you really wonder about the rise of antisemitism and if the past could happen again, simply watch the hostage situation as it is happening again.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum headquartered in Tel Aviv is dedicated entirely to the hostages and their families. I’ve been there twice. It is referred to as ‘the saddest place on earth’ and I have to agree that is certainly is one of them. The Kibbutzim that were attacked on October 7th and the site of the Nova festival are two others that could claim that title. Yet visiting there and hostage square, just around the corner, is something that I feel compelled to do on each visit since October 7th. As long as thre are hostages remaining, I must remember them. I must speak out for them. It’s an obligation I think we all have. Every day, I still sing Achenu, praying for their safe return. It’s an easy thing to do so I’ll post it again here in case anybody wants to join me in this daily ritual. Hebrew or English it doesn’t matter.

There is another type of hostage that we are dealing with today. We are hostages in our own communities. An American Jew was assaulted in Ireland, just for being Jewish. Israeli Jews harrassed in Australia. Jewish children and teens attacked in London on a school bus. A Jewish man in New York slashed across the face, just because he was Jewish. An Israeli man attacked in Thailand by a German man, just because he was Jewish. The stories go on and on and on.

My friend Lou’s daughter wrote this powerful piece about what studying at Stanford has been like as a Jewish student. She dropped out of her Ph.D. program there as a result. The stories are heartbreaking. We aren’t physical hostages but we are hostages to hate. I was talking to a friend of mine who lives in the northern United States last week. He was telling me about how scary it is to walk around publicly Jewish. I was telling him that I don’t care. I won’t surrender my identity. I won’t pretend to be something that I am not. Then again, I don’t wear a kippah and most people think I am Italian, not Jewish. My tattoos on my forearms are visible but most people don’t think of them as something Jewish unless they are Jewish.

Unlike the hostages in Gaza, we have a choice. We can choose to act like hostages, to hide our Jewish identities. Or we can choose to be proud of our intentities and fight back. I choose to fight back. I choose to stand up against the hate. I choose to not let them win. They can try to physically assault me. They can yell and scream at me. They do their damnest to make me intimidated to be Jewish. It won’t work. I am part of a 3,000 year old tribe and won’t disappear. Listen to the powerful words of my friend Andrew Lustig who writes powerful poetry. I am Jewish.