{"id":42526,"date":"2023-10-27T01:54:47","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T08:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=42526"},"modified":"2023-10-26T18:36:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T01:36:43","slug":"rally-and-march-for-hostages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2023\/10\/27\/rally-and-march-for-hostages\/","title":{"rendered":"Rally and march for hostages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds marched on Oct. 22, calling for the release of the more than 200 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza. (photo by Pat Johnson)<\/em><\/p>\n

Erez, aged 12, and his sister Sahar, 16, had spent the night at their father\u2019s house in Kibbutz Nir Oz when Hamas terrorists stormed the home. The kids jumped out the window and hid in the bushes while gunmen rampaged their community, shooting entire families in their beds and safe rooms. \u201cMom, be quiet, don\u2019t move,\u201d he texted his mom, Hadas. She texted back: \u201cI love you forever. I hope you survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erez did not reply. For hours, Hadas called Erez\u2019s cellphone repeatedly, even as she fought for her life, physically blocking terrorists from breaking down her safe room door.\u00a0Then Erez\u2019s older sister found an 18-second video circulating on social media. It showed Erez in a black T-shirt, being gripped by both arms and led into captivity.<\/p>\n

In all, five members of the Kalderon family were taken: Erez, Sahar, their 50-year-old father, Ofer, their 80-year-old grandmother, Carmela, and 12-year-old cousin, Noya, were grabbed from another house in the community.<\/p>\n

This was one of many individual stories shared at a vigil and march in Vancouver Sunday, Oct. 22, where hundreds of Vancouverites chanted \u201cBring them home!\u201d and \u201cLet our people go!\u201d as they marched from the Vancouver Art Gallery, protected by a large police presence, along Georgia Street, over to Robson and back to the original site. The steps of the art gallery\u2019s north side were packed with people holding posters of the hostages \u2013 and these posters represented only half of the total number of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza.<\/p>\n

The faces are also seen on thousands of posters around Metro Vancouver and elsewhere. Activists in communities worldwide have downloaded and printed the sheets, plastering them around city streets. The Vancouver efforts \u2013 which have seen probably 20,000 posters distributed so far \u2013 are led by Daphna Kedem, who also initiated the Sunday afternoon event and an earlier vigil two days after the Oct. 7 terror attacks.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
About 20,000 posters \u2013 the cost of which was covered by two anonymous non-Jewish donors \u2013 have been put up by volunteers all around Metro Vancouver. (photo from Daphna Kedem)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kedem is also a lead organizer of the local branch of UnXeptable, which, until the current crisis, was agitating against proposed Israeli government efforts to undermine responsible government there. Her current activism, she stressed, is done in her capacity as an individual, but she expressed gratitude to Rabbi Dan Moscovitz of Temple Sholom for helping organize, and to other synagogues, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and others for unhesitatingly jumping in to help.<\/p>\n

Putting a human face to the hostages is the right thing to do, Kedem said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to bring it out to the public because it\u2019s a humanitarian crisis,\u201d she told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cOnce you personalize it and you see that it\u2019s an innocent baby or a child, you care more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Left to right: Flavia Markman, Ezra Shanken, Anet Bernadette and William Wolff. The four are among the many volunteers who have put up around the city approximately 20,000 posters with the faces, names and ages of Israelis taken hostage by the terrorist group Hamas. For more on the Bring Them Home effort. (photo by Flavia Markman)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kedem said the cost of printing the thousands of posters was covered by two anonymous non-Jewish donors and, at the rally this past Sunday, Christian clergy spoke, including a Catholic representative and two evangelical ministers.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, frustration over the silence of so many others was evident in the words of Moskovitz to the rally.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce again, Jews are being slaughtered and violently attacked and the world is silent,\u201d he told hundreds of attendees, many carrying Israeli or Canadian flags. \u201cOr they say, \u2018Yes, but.\u2019 There is no \u2018but\u2019 to murder. There can be no \u2018but\u2019 to hate. There can be no \u2018but\u2019 to the kidnapping of civilians, of children, of grandparents, of pregnant mothers, of disabled people. There can be no \u2018but\u2019 to that. There can be no justification for that. This is 2023, not 1943. And yet \u2018Never again\u2019 is happening again right now. The Jewish people will not be silent. You must not be silent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moskovitz slammed the moral equivocation heard in commentary and seen in street rallies worldwide.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was not an act of resistance,\u201d he said. \u201cThis was not a military campaign. This was not a popular uprising. This was cold, calculated and barbaric murder and rape and kidnapping of innocent civilians, the vast majority of them Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n

Motioning to the posters of the hostages, he added: \u201cWe call on those in our own city who cheer and celebrate what Hamas has done to these people and thousands of others on that horrible day to stop. Stop cheering the terrorists. Stop denying our grief, our human value. Stop your whataboutism. Stop tearing down pictures of children who have been kidnapped. Stop helping the terrorists. Stop justifying their brutality. Simply, stop.\u2026 Find your moral compass. Find the compassion you have for everyone and everything except Jews. Join us in this most basic of human cries: return our children to their parents, return our families to their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

A WhatsApp group, \u201cBTH \u2013 Vancouver,\u201d is coordinating the postering activities: to join, visit bit.ly\/BTH-Vancouver. Posters are downloadable by anyone at kidnappedfromisrael.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hundreds marched on Oct. 22, calling for the release of the more than 200 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza. (photo by Pat Johnson) Erez, aged 12, and his sister Sahar, 16, had spent the night at their father\u2019s house in Kibbutz Nir Oz when Hamas terrorists stormed the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42528,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[22714,22698,687,4361,22700,4330,1774],"class_list":["post-42526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-bring-them-home","tag-daphna-redeem","tag-gaza","tag-hamas","tag-hostages","tag-israel","tag-terrorism"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}