Today’s column I can say with some certainty in the knowledge that my opinion is widely shared by most Israelis, falls upon one of the most significant achievements in the entire Gaza War. Because today, after eleven years of national anguish, the fallen soldier Hadar Goldin, was finally returned to his family and his homeland.  

I met Hadar’s parents, Simcha and Leah, not long ago when Simcha came to speak in Zichron Yaakov. Both Simcha and Leah have been absolutely tireless in demanding the return of Hadar’s body. Every Thursday for months not far from my home, a demonstration was held to remind everyone that Hadar was still not home, and that we can no sooner leave fallen soldiers behind in battle than leave the wounded. “Eleven years ago we stood here and shouted that it was forbidden to leave Gaza without Hadar. We traveled the whole world trying to achieve the impossible,” Leah Goldin said today, following the return of Hadar to Israel.

Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, a talented painter and graphic artist, was a platoon commander in the Givati Brigade’s Reconnaissance Battalion during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, a war that began when in June 2014 Hamas cruelly and gratuitously kidnapped three hitchhiking yeshiva boys and murdered them in cold blood, hiding their bodies. By August 1, a UN and US brokered ceasefire was declared, which Hamas immediately violated, emerging from a tunnel and murdering several soldiers, including Hadar, and kidnapping his body to Gaza.

Born in 1991 to Simcha Goldin, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University, and Dr. Leah Goldin, a computer scientist, Hadar, along with his twin Tzur, was the youngest of six children. At that meeting, I saw clips of Hadar, a beautiful young man, engaged to be married only months before he was killed. It made me truly understand the unrelenting efforts of his parents to bring him home. Dead or alive, this was their precious son, their wonderful child. Their life.

The Goldins maintained throughout that the war should never have ended until Hadar was returned. They, and others maintained, that continuing to allow business as usual with Hamas in Gaza – providing electricity, letting trucks bring in goods, letting Gazans get medical treatment in Israeli hospitals – should have been completely stopped until the bodies were returned. Allowing kidnapping Israeli soldiers to be passed over and normalized, just gave Hamas the incentive to do worse.

How right they were!

On October 7, 2023, with the outcry for the return of the hostages, and the war with Gaza, new hope was born. And although the Israeli government never listed the return of Hadar among its hostage demands until very recently, still, with the victory of our soldiers and Hamas facing total annihilation, and a new President in the White House who actually gives a damn, the means were suddenly there to apply the necessary pressure on those bloody Hamas savages.

The other day, the Zichron Town Council decided to clear away the signs and posters asking for the release of the hostages from the central square. This was immediately met with a horrified outcry by my neighbors. Three fallen soldiers, and one non-Israel remain in Gaza! they protested. The Municipality caved immediately, returning the signs and posters.

Israelis will not rest, will not stop, until every single one of the hostages is back home. This is a value we teach the world: respect for the deceased, the right to a decent burial. In Jewish law and custom, the treatment of a corpse is called “Chesed shel Emet” or the truest form of lovingkindness. It is fundamental to the Jewish religion.

I hope that Israel, and her people, in their unwavering stubbornness and commitment to this value, has taught the world now under Islamic cultural bombardment to view the disfigurement and desecration of corpses as the new normal.

The story of the cell phone of the Military Advocate General of the IDF, under investigation for leaking material harmful to our soldiers, refuses to leave the headlines. Apparently, a woman actually recovered the phone from the ocean, and even after being in salt water for hours, it still works! More than one television show has been showing live experiments with putting phones in salt water.

Now the question is, what is on that phone? In the meantime Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi herself, has once again been hospitalized and is under suicide watch.

Such a contrast: the streets lined with Israelis waving flags in honor of the passing van containing the body of a heroic soldier lost in battle; and the disgraceful scurrying into a car chased by reporters of the IDF lawyer who was only too delighted to blacken the reputation of our soldiers.  

To end, I’d like to add the Facebook post I uploaded after the election of Mamdani, that vicious jihadi antisemite, as mayor of my birthplace, New York City:

“What I have to say will not be popular. It will be upsetting and make people angry. Many will violently disagree. But it is the truth. All the places in the world outside of Israel where Jews have set up their lives in comfort, are now under attack and disintegrating. Europe, Canada, Australia, US, France, England…When G-d promised to gather the Jews from the four corners of the earth, these Jews didn’t think it referred to them, because they were happy and comfortable. Now, we are in the middle of this ingathering. It’s not pretty. It’s not comfortable. But it will happen. Out of this evil, will come the fulfillment of the prophecy. That is our comfort. Those who come now will be better off than those who have to flee later in panic. You can’t fight against this.”

This is what I truly believe. People who lived through Kristallnacht say Mamdani’s election feels exactly like that.

This is the way it starts.

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