The hope, התקווה, the national anthem of Israel. Always sung as a booming anthem, sung passionately and with an never ending sense of pride.

On this 100th day of being a hostage, a group of Jewish Syrian New Yorkers gathered on the corner of avenue R and Ocean Parkway.

There were yellow ribbons pinned to the right of our chest and the number, “100″ stickered where our broken hearts reside.

It was a blustery cold Sunday morning, January 14th 2024. We were given Israeli flags and posters of the kidnapped civilians. We walked with them solemnly and carried our flags with pride.

Songs were sung, there were chants and prayers.

Hatikva, the hope…sung today by a group of people on Ocean Parkway, praying for a miracle.


It was sung as a prayer. A prayer to a higher power to somehow create a miracle. To descend and to destroy the evil among us, once and for all.

That is what we need, a miracle to bring those who were savagely kidnapped from their homes, home again.

Whatever home means for them at this point. Most of their homes are gone as are most of their family and friends.

The “home” they will return to, if they ever do come home, will be a much different home then the one they were kidnapped from on October 7.

On that October morning perhaps a wager was made. Perhaps the ghost of Joab closed his eyes and the devil sent his children to destroy what can never be destroyed to see if we would lose our faith, our emunah.

As Jewish people, we have been through it all. Slavery, torcher, countless exiles from what we considered our home. Our true homeland was stolen and laid to waste.

Children, parents, friends were stolen from our lives just as one discards a paper tissue.

A dance for life, turns into a field of death and savage human desecration. Mutilation, decapitation, rape and other forms of torture.

Blood flowed, like the waters in Noah’s flood. Evil came from the sky, from the sea, from the land of amalek.

Prayers were shouted, flags were waved, the faces of the stolen souls were displayed and the songs were sung as hymns of defiance.

I tried to join but the words of the prayers, the words of the songs had escaped me.

History has proven that the Jewish people will live on forever, but why so much pain?


We have been tortured, yet the world turns its eyes in a repeat of history from the 1940s.

We have been raped, yet the world ignores the cries. A child was placed in an oven while his pregnant mother was forced to watch, be raped and be torn apart, her baby stolen forever, before mercifully, dying.

Why the silence of the world? Why the condemnation of the Jewish people?
Why? Why?

Can hatred be so powerful that it can destroy any sense of empathy towards the victims hunted for the God they serve?

Can hatred be so powerful that it can destroy any sense of humanity?

We walked up Ocean Parkway and most were singing songs about our faith and love in God. I walked in silence, I didn’t feel like singing, praying or chanting. I carried a photograph of one of the kidnapped and I could not chant, sing or pray.
I walked and I thought about the loneliness, the pain and the torture that these human beings, who’s only sin was being Jewish, have been going through. I couldn’t smile, laugh or take photographs.
I just felt numb.
Broken.
Angry.
Skeptical.
Disillusioned.


I walked and I thought about the loneliness, the pain and the torture that these human beings, who’s only sin was being Jewish, have been going through. I couldn’t smile, laugh or take photographs.
I just felt numb.
Broken.
Angry.
Skeptical.
Disillusioned.

I was angry at my God, how could He allow this to happen again?

As the songs were sung, in prayer-like volume and tone, I stood there and realized I had forgotten the words.


So I pointed my poster towards the passing cars on Ocean Parkway and hoped that whoever was seeing this, remembered the words.

As I stood there, the wind was blowing and my tears were flowing within me.

The forgotten words were streaming through my blood.
שמע ישראל אדוני אלוהינו אדוני אחד.