Hostage's Mother Doesn't Forget Wounded Soldiers
It is hard to fathom that the clips I bring here are from almost 100 days ago.
100 additional days that the remaining 56 hostages are still being held captive in Gaza. (Thankfully, there are precious exceptions: Edan Alexander came home alive less than one month ago, and today we saw the return of the bodies of Judith Weinstein and Gadi Haggai, z’’l, both who were murdered on October 7th.)
But the words, and actions of the released hostages and their families continue to give me incredible strength and hope. I will be bringing them here more and more, perhaps even focusing on one at a time.
Today I bring you two clips. The first, of Shelly Shem Tov, the mother of Omer, who was held for 505 days. All throughout Omer’s captivity, Shelly regularly visited wounded soldiers in the hospital, and here she is seen, just two weeks after Omer’s return, visiting Itay, a wounded soldier with whom she built a special connection.
And the following is a short clip from the first days after Omer’s release, when the amazing artist Eviatar Banai visited him in the hospital and sang these words from his evocative song Aba (Father)- a song that is an open, pained, and intimate conversation with G-d. (You can hear it in full here.)
When Eviatar sings the words sof tov (“a good ending”), you can hear Shelly in the background saying the words herself, as if she is praying.
Father (G-d) I want to be certain with all my heart That to this journey there is a good ending. That everything I'll go through on the way Will transform weakness into great strength
And here I bring you this just to make you smile: a short story Omer tells in English about what he found waiting for him when he arrived to the hospital upon his return.