LOWER MERION — As the sun set on Friday afternoon, the fliers fluttered in the breeze — more than 200 of them, each bearing a name, a photo, a message, and a plea.
“KIDNAPPED” above a photo and bio, then “Kidnapped from their home by Hamas,” and the message: “Take a photo of this poster and share it. Please help bring them home alive,” all attached to more than 200 empty seats, and high chairs, along a symbolic Shabbat dinner table.
“For the hostages taken, our brothers and sisters, one thing do we pray, these words that you will hear over and over: Bring them home. This is our prayer, we want them home. Say it with me: Bring them home,” said Rabbi Eric Yanoff of Temple Adath Israel.
“With this installation here, by saying ‘Bring them home,’ we mean that just as there are empty places at Shabbat places in Israel, we are saving a place for them here, or downtown in Center City, or in New York, or Tel Aviv, or similar statements throughout the world. We are saving a place for them at a Shabbat table, saving a place in our hearts, until God willing, and with the help of the IDF, we bring them home,” he said.
On a grassy lawn outside Temple Adath Israel, at the corner of Old Lancaster Road and Highland Avenue, stood the empty Shabbat table, set with over 200 plates, candles, flowers, and each chair adorned with a flier representing a hostage, from infants to seniors, all believed to be in the custody of Hamas, their fates unknown.
Ben Mittman of Merion Station spoke to the hundreds about his cousin Alon Ohel, a 22-year-old Israeli captured at the Supernova music festival that came under attack in the early hours of Oct. 7, relaying stories told by survivors of the attack and passed on from family half a world away.
“When the rockets started coming down at 6 a.m., he and his four friends were running, and running to hide, to find shelter. They found a shelter with 27 people. Out of those 27, three were taken alive by Hamas to Gaza. Seven were grievously injured and are in hospitals now — two of those were his friends — two of his best friends were killed,” said Mittman.
“The Hamas terrorists were throwing grenades into the shelter, and he and two of his friends were the ones throwing them back out. One of them exploded, they didn’t get to one of them, and after that — from the eyewitness who survived, and is in the hospital, he said they took three people including Alon as hostages, and then came in and shot everybody else in the shelter,” he said.
Denton’s, his law firm, has donated $100,000 the UJA Federation of NY – Israel Emergency Fund, and Mittman recalled for the crowd how his grandfather was born in 1910 in a shtetl near Warsaw, and his earliest memory was fleeing from a pogrom into the woods. The extended family are keeping in touch through Alon’s grandparents, Mittman said, who passed on a message.
“‘All your activities for our captives are helping us. Keep being active, supporting us. Every voice brings Alon and the others closer to their home,'” Mittman read, before leading a prayer in Hebrew for the captives.
Dalia Levine, one of the event organizers, said she had traveled here from Israel just before the Oct. 7 attacks, and felt a need to help out in some way.
“It’s a generally uniting day. Generally, people have family dinners on Friday night. And that’s the whole idea, of the seat being missing from the family dinner,” she said.
“These individuals won’t be with their families this Shabbat, and at past Shabbats, and who knows when they’ll be reunited? Such empty tables can be seen across the globe, from Tel Aviv, to Rome, to Bondi Beach, Capitol Hill and outside the Warsaw ghetto monument. We found this installation to be fitting, to express our pain at the missing links in our chain: those who are being held hostage, and don’t know when they’ll fill the empty seats at their Shabbat table, and those who were brutally murdered at the hands of Hamas terrorists,” she said.
Levine said she was visiting here when the attacks happened and so far has been unable to get back due to cancelled flights, while co-organizer Alisha Abboudi said she has two children living in Israel now, one whose husband is on duty in an IDF army intelligence unit, and for now they’re staying in Levine’s apartment until the situation settles. Before the ceremony, the two swapped stories they had heard from family in Israel about hiding in bomb shelters as sirens go off and rockets fall, and have learned since the attacks that their families live just around the corner from each other.
“It’s hard to keep track, because I would say every hour, there’s some other fundraiser happening,” Abboudi said. Their friend Yoni Jacobson is hosting a fundraiser this weekend for volunteers who have enlisted in the Israeli Defense Forces, because so many have responded that the military is unequipped.
“They’ve all identified things that they need, because basically 130 percent of the people who were called up, came, and they only have 80 percent” of the equipment they need, Jacobson said: “We’re identifying what every unit needs, raising money for that, buying it, and shipping it, however they can.”
“What is going to happen in Gaza is going to be terrible. And that is terrible, and I’m not OK with that. And…and…,” she said, before the trio started swapping stories of movies they had watched about prior wars against Israel, the similarities they see to today, and campus protests they had seen this month in support of Hamas and opposing Israel.
“I keep thinking of 1938. And people probably thought the same thing back then: ‘This can’t last forever.’ And then…we saw what happened,” Abboudi said. “We’re basically at the end of the survivors — and now we’re going to have new survivors.”
After the opening remarks, ahead of a moment of silence, came a minute of sirens: the air raid sirens heard throughout Israel this month, warning those in cities under attack to get to underground shelters as rockets fall on their cities, and on Holocaust Remembrance Day and Memorial Day there. Hundreds of voices then joined in song for the Haktiva, the national anthem of Israel, before hearing from Mittman about his cousin currently held captive, and joining in a prayer led by Abboudi for the military, for those held hostage, and for the state of Israel and the U.S. government.
As others shared stories of earlier Jewish captives and the parallels to today, some strolled around the table, observing each hostage with a background, a photo, and a story, with a handful of high chairs holding toys meant to represent the youngest hostages, ages four and under. Debbi Frankel said her son Jacob, who went to school just down the street from Adath Israel, is putting his uniform back on, returning to service in the IDF after living in America with a young family because his former unit has been called to defend their county.
“He said, ‘They have children, they have lives, they have families. My life is no more important than any of theirs,'” she said.
Eddy Boaz said he just learned this week that his wife’s cousin, Tamar Goldenberg, also attended the festival and has been missing since attacks, and Yanoff said that his phone’s messaging apps have been giving alerts nonstop since the attacks three weeks ago, from congregation members looking for ways to show their support. Levine and Abboudi said they plan to leave the table on display until Sunday, then find other ways to make a difference, and help those under attack, held hostage, or worse.
“The big message to the world, and it’s just not clicking, is that the kibbutzim that were attacked, was a community that was very pro-Palestinian, they were pro-peace. And they were massacred, because Hamas doesn’t ask about your politics, what side you’re on. If you’re Jewish, they’re coming after you,” Abboudi said.
“Israel has a Pride parade, every year, in Tel Aviv. The Palestinians, they would incarcerate you for ten years, for a same-sex relationship, and Hamas would exterminate you,” she said.
Others who asked not to be identified said they have children or other relatives who grew up in the Lower Merion area and are in Israel now, or on the way, and hope they’re safe.
“Everybody wants peace. I think it means a lot, for Israel to know that we do support them. Support what’s right and what’s wrong,” one said. Another said he had returned to the area from Israel earlier Friday, and saw “the strength of Israel, right here. Evil never coalesces like good. The attack was an attack on civilized society. Our goal is to put an end to the suffering, of Israelis, and there should be no doubt that the suffering of the Palestinian people is due to their leadership.”
