Cousins Gili and Maya Roman sat in the front row Saturday night for a havdalah service at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan surrounded by other hostage family members and community supporters.
Gili’s sister Yarden Roman-Gat was taken from Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7 and was among the hostages released from Hamas on November 29.
Yarden’s sister-in-law, Carmel Gat, remains in Gaza.
Acting Consul General of Israel to New York, Aviv Ezra, addressed the nearly 100 people gathered in the lobby of the JCC.
Ambiguity is not an option
“I don’t want to exaggerate too much,” Ezra said, “but I have to tell you that there are junctures in history where ambiguity is not an option, and this is one of those junctures.”
Ezra praised what he said was “strong support” from US President Joe Biden’s administration and House and Senate members showing support in a bipartisan, bicameral manner.
“When we saw Speaker of the House of Representatives Michael Johnson with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, standing with Sen. [Chuck] Schumer, the majority leader of the Senate, with the leadership of the Republicans, all four of them together singing “Hatikvah,” and expressing their support for Israel’s rightful self-defense and dutiful self-defense, this was unprecedented,” Ezra said, “because they don’t agree on anything else.”
He also praised New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who he said didn’t care about political calculations when traveling to Israel in a show of support.
Rights organizations have been absent
Notably, Ezra did call out women’s organizations and groups that he claimed “disappeared” after October 7.
“And therefore, when you do your everyday advocacy work, and when you call your friends and when you talk with elected officials, the message should be, ambiguity is not an option here,” Ezra said.
Following Ezra’s remarks, rabbi Joanna Samuels, CEO of Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, then led the havdalah service.
“Having the family members here just intensifies the humanity of those who are involved. They are truly not just our brothers and sisters in some broad sense, they are our brothers and sisters. They are someone’s brothers and sisters,” Samuels told The Jerusalem Post.
“And so we appropriately can’t escape from that feeling of despair and anguish, but also the feeling that we must act,” Samuels stressed.
“They are the goad that ensures that we act.”
Samuels said she doesn’t see that as part of her job as a rabbi, but as the duty of “every single caring human being in the world.”
“I see this as a particular obligation of the Jewish community right now to stand united and in solidarity, to demand the return of hostages and to extend love and support to their loved ones,” she said.
Samuels said some of the songs chosen for the havdalah service were prayers, and some songs were meant to feel like prayers.
These are songs, Samuels said, that help articulate “what it is we hope for in the world.”