And that is why today in the Five Towns, when you walk through our main shopping district of Central Avenue, you cannot pass by any of the stores without seeing posters or flyers featuring the images of hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas terrorists.
Last week, Far Rockaway resident, Guy Tzadik, called to tell me about his plan to approach every retail store on the avenue and ask them to place these flyers or posters with pictures of the hostages as a means of keeping their memory front and center. Almost every store owner agreed, and the few that objected are a separate story that perhaps should be told at a later time.
The posters of the hostages have made news around the country, largely due to the hateful and corrupt people who have taken it upon themselves to tear them down from wherever they have been hung.
There is a widely circulated video of a Middle Eastern-looking man pulling down flyers from light poles in Queens. In the video, he is confronted by two men who challenge him and ask him what he thinks he’s doing. He responds by saying there is no proof there are hostages that were taken by Hamas. He is obviously a Hamas terror supporter who either lives or works in Queens.
The two men who confront him say they are not Jewish, and one of them goes face to face with the miscreant, telling him as he throws the crunched-up signs on the sidewalk, that he is littering, and adds that in another minute he’s going to litter the street with the person pulling down the signs.
His friend pulls him away and they chase the perpetrator, the one who denied that 1,300 people were killed by Hamas and hundreds more taken hostage, away from the scene.
Why is it important that the photos of the hostages be seen in as many places as possible? One of the reasons is because otherwise as time passes the fact that so many people—mostly Jews—are being held against their will can be forgotten.
At the UN earlier this week Ambassador Gilad Erdan took to wearing a yellow star and reminded the member states that 75 years ago as six million Jews were being murdered by the Nazis and other complicit countries like Poland and Ukraine, the world remained silent, and now that Jews are being butchered and kidnapped by the enemy in our present day, once again the world remains silent. However, this time as member states of the United Nations.
So, our friend Guy took his time one evening last week to go store to store in Lawrence and Cedarhurst offering signs of the hostages for the store owners to hang in their windows, reminding people of the hostages being held in Gaza for more than a month now.
In the parking lot of the Young Israel of Woodmere last week prior to Shabbos, a table was set with more than 200 settings representing those who are missing and far away from their families. It was a beautiful and deeply meaningful gesture. Like the signs in the windows and Mr. Erdan’s yellow star, the reality of the hostage situation must remain front and center and very much alive.
Standing Up To Terror
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib exemplifies what it means to be a textbook Jew-hater. That is what she is and she’s proud of that fact and does not hesitate to say so. In the past, prior to October 7, she said she smiles and has a warm feeling whenever she hears that six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. The Council of Arab-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has been shopping their annual convention around the country where they hope their disjointed and wrong-thinking supporters can attend a conference that celebrates Hamas murder, violence, and kidnapping. Yes, it is indeed odd but that is what these people do.
Over the last few weeks, they have advertised the event at hotels in Texas, then Virginia and most recently in Mesa, Arizona at the Sheraton Hotel. Each hotel general manager came under blistering pressure from both national and local Jewish leaders not to host an event like this that is so submerged in hate that it should be anathema to all people. In the end, due to security considerations, though under contract to CAIR, those hotels cancelled the events.
When the original news about the Houston venue became known, I contacted the Chabad shliach at the hotel in question in Houston. The indication was that the Marriott Hotel was planning to go forward with the event.
At the time, the Marriott Hotel that was planning on allowing the meeting was being unresponsive to the request that such an event not be allowed to go forward. It was only a few days later that it was discovered that the property of the Houston Marriott as well as the nearby Hilton hotel were both partially owned by a local Jewish businessman.
The Marriott, Hilton, and many other well-known hotels are mostly run by hotel management companies and the real estate owned by business people or other companies. In this case, as soon as the property owner became aware of what was going on—that the CAIR event was not just another hotel booking—the event in Houston was cancelled.
Another incident occurred in Mesa, Arizona, where noted event planners Penina Wiener and Rabbi Moshe Fuchs had booked a beautiful hotel campus to host their Pesach program for the upcoming year. During their visit there last week, they were informed that the CAIR group was scheduled to have a convention with Rashida Tlaib as Keynote speaker. Both Rabbi Fuchs and Penina were devastated by this news and had to make a difficult decision despite considerable financial loss. They informed the hotel management that despite their admiration for the incredible staff and the warm relationships that they had developed, they could not in good conscience continue their Pesach program in that location.
Fortunately, a week later, the hotel management announced the decision to cancel the CAIR event, so the Grand Pesach Arizona program lives on.
This is a much longer story with many details that we will get to next week. In the meantime, it is important to note that the Sheraton Hotel in question stepped up and cancelled the CAIR event.
As you can see, it has been a month now, and every one of us regardless of our station or role in life has a part to play in this war. The other morning on Fox News, MK Benny Gantz was commenting on the ongoing battles in Gaza when he was asked what he thought about the anti-Jewish hatred we are seeing here in the U.S. His response was: “We fight, they fight,” referring to American Jews.
Unlike Israel’s wars in the past with our enemies, this might be the first one that is not about disputed land, the Temple Mount, or Jerusalem. It is about our Jewish hearts and souls. The battles are taking place in Gaza City, on our college campuses, and as you can see, in Mesa, Arizona as well.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Larry Gordon is editor in chief of the Five Towns Jewish Times.