Peace Upon Israel

On the 754th day since October 7, 2023, I walked into the plaza of Hostage Square, the heart of community organizing and public support for families of those held hostage in Gaza. The place where so many gathered for over two years in prayer and protest. 
 

I was honored, on previous visits, to join our Reform Movement in Israel at weekly Havdalah services. Each week, Reform rabbis, joined by Israelis and Reform Jews from around the world, offered blessings and songs as a salve for suffering, at the same time opening a new pathway into progressive, Reform Judaism. 

This past winter, I stood in this same square, broken-hearted, on the day that the bodies of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas came home.
 

Today, as of writing, 11 deceased hostages remain in captivity, and we stand in solidarity with those families, until the last hostage, to bring them all home. 

On this 754th evening, a small cluster of people sat listening attentively to two speakers. They were the parents of Omer Neutra, an Israeli-American murdered on October 7, whose body is still held in Gaza. Just two days prior, Orna and Ronen Neutra spoke with moral clarity to those of us gathered from around the world for the 39th World Zionist Congress.

And yet, this past week, on my first visit to Israel since the beginning of this US-brokered ceasefire and return of the final twenty living hostages, I did indeed arrive in a different country. A country grappling with life and death, with values and vision for a future. And a country that is overwhelmingly, profoundly relieved to no longer be at war.
 

Earlier in the week, walking the stone streets of Jerusalem, from the Old City to the Machane Yehuda market, I felt it. In golden letters across the top of Habima, the National Theater in Tel Aviv, the message now reads Welcome Back Home.
 

And in Hostage Square, the yellow chairs are stacked neatly. The chairs are empty now, no longer a symbol of those who are missing, but as a reminder of how many have returned home. The entire country, suspended in the seventh of October for over seven hundred days, has finally exhaled.
 

Since my last visit to Hostage Square, a new blue and white banner demands attention with its simple, declarative blessing:
 

שלום על ישראל

Peace Upon Israel.

The words are from Psalm 128, this is the full verse:

May God bless you from Tzion
May you see the goodness of Jerusalem all the days of your life
May you be blessed to see your children's children
Peace Upon Israel (Psalm 128)

Adjacent to this new banner of blessing, I was moved to see photos of released hostages, now reunited with their families. Parents with their children once more.

A blessing of hope. A wish, for some, never to be fulfilled. For those reunited with their loved ones, it is a promise kept, a dream that is now a reality. 

May you be blessed to see your children’s children.

Peace Upon Israel.