‘Bring remaining hostages home – alive!’
Six speakers lit candles and paid tribute to the six murdered hostages, describing their vanquished hopes and dreams.
Chanting “bring them home alive” and holding up placards with the faces of hostages, some titled “murdered”, others “kidnapped”, hundreds packed into Caulfield Shule on Monday night to mourn the brutal deaths of six hostages held by Hamas since October 7.
Kaddish was recited for Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Carmel Gat, 40, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Alexander Lobanov, 33, Almog Sarusi, 27, and Ori Danino, 25, after their bodies were recovered by the IDF from a tunnel beneath Rafah in Gaza on Saturday.
Six speakers lit candles and paid tribute to the six murdered hostages, describing their vanquished hopes and dreams.
At the Zionism Victoria (ZV) memorial event, president Yossi Goldfarb emphasised that bringing the remaining hostages home must be the Israeli government’s “chief priority” – believed to be the first time an Australian Jewish community leader has been that specific.
He called on the Israeli government “to redouble its efforts and do whatever it takes to bring the hostages home today. This can and must be the chief priority of the government”.
“We stand with the people. We stand with the state, and we stand with the government as they collectively battle Hamas in order to remove them from having any further influence in the region.
“And while we stand with the government, we also hear the voices of the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who gathered over the weekend to demand an immediate deal to release the remaining hostages – inflamed by the fact that the hostages were murdered only in the last few days, an eventuality that may not have occurred had a deal been finalised.
“Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh – all of Israel is responsible for one another. We too here in Melbourne are responsible for the hostages. We too are responsible for making our voices heard. We’ve also suffered 331 sleepless nights and anxious days, as we stay glued to our devices, following the latest news, communicating with friends and family here in Israel and elsewhere. We also hope that tonight is the last night we experience this nightmare.”
For the six dead hostages and their families, “there are no further nights, no further days, no further hope of being reunited with their loved ones – murdered in cold blood by Hamas”, said Goldfarb.
“If we believe the rhetoric of others who claim to be for human rights and freedom, who shamelessly contend that murder, rape and wholesale slaughter are legitimate acts of resistance, then we might be understandably confused. But we know very well who is Israel’s enemy and who is the enemy of the Jewish people, led by Iran, their proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. They have amply demonstrated how much they care for human rights.
“Murdering captives in cold blood is surely a loathsome, immoral war crime, no matter what one’s perspective on the current conflict is. And again, the human rights activists, the students on our university campuses and those from other communities respond to the latest atrocity with silence – a silence that exposes their hypocrisy and confirms their support for antisemitic terrorism and its unspeakably evil outcomes.”
At Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Monday afternoon, the emotion in the air was palpable as around 800 members of the Jewish community embraced one another, mourned together and took comfort in each other. Speakers included Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin, former Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy and Member for Macnamara Josh Burns.
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