The Beautiful Six: They Must Remain Our Why
This week, according to the Hebrew calendar, marks two years since the murder of the Beautiful Six: Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov and Ori Danino.
Two years, and I can still remember exactly where I was when I learned they were gone. Before I arrived at our weekly United With Israel rally in Melbourne that morning, a rumour had begun circulating through the hostage families' forum. Six bodies had been found.
We didn't know who. Nothing had been officially confirmed, so I couldn't say anything. But it was there, buzzing beneath everything.
We held the rally as we had every week. We spoke. We called for the hostages to come home. And then, when the rally ended, it was officially confirmed.
It was no longer a rumour.
Carmel was dead. Hersh was dead. Alongside Eden, Almog, Alex and Ori. I felt as though someone had punched me so hard that I couldn't breathe.
Two years have passed according to our calendar. But some moments get stuck with you forever.
I had come to know some of the hostage families through the long months of campaigning for their loved ones. Like so many people around the world, I had followed Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin as they fought relentlessly for Hersh, not only for their son, but for every hostage.
This week, at Hersh's memorial, Rachel spoke words that are difficult to hear without breaking down. She described everything they had done to bring him home: running, begging, praying, screaming, fighting, falling, getting back up, trying again and again. And then came the words that are almost impossible to absorb:
"Oh dear God, we failed. But we tried."
They tried because Hersh kept himself alive long enough for them to try.
"You were and are our WHY," Rachel said.
She thanked her precious boy, her "shining star", and ended with the last words Hersh had ever written to his family, turning them back towards him:
"I love you. And I'm sorry."
I keep coming back to those words. Because Rachel and Jon did not fail Hersh. The families did not fail their loved ones. The thousands of people in Israel and around the world who marched, protested, travelled, spoke, begged and refused to let the hostages disappear from public consciousness did not fail them. But somewhere along the way, we failed them.
We had allowed the hostages to become a debatable issue.
People who had been dragged from their homes, from a music festival, from their lives, somehow became associated with one political camp or another. Their return became something to debate and something to weigh against territory, military objectives and political survival. I could not understand it then, and I still cannot understand it now.
How can someone's life be worth less than a piece of land?
Hersh survived for 328 days. Carmel survived. Eden survived. Almog survived. Alex survived. Ori survived. They stayed alive. And we did not bring them home.
Hamas kidnapped them. Hamas held them in horrific conditions. Hamas murdered them. There can be no ambiguity about that responsibility. But if we truly want to honour the Beautiful Six, we must also have the courage to look inward and ask the difficult questions. How did saving our hostages become political? How did compassion become associated with a political camp? How did the most basic Jewish and human responsibility, pidyon shvuyim, the redemption of captives, become something over which Israelis fought one another? The tear running through Israeli society has not healed. It is getting wider.
And now, with an election approaching, the air feels almost unbearably thick. Every argument about security, democracy, settlements, religion and the future of Israel seems to contain another question underneath it:
What kind of country are we becoming?
Look at what is happening right now in Qusra, a Palestinian village south of Nablus. For days, Palestinian families have been trapped in their homes while Israeli settlers have surrounded them. Water and electricity have been cut. An illegal outpost was erected beside the homes. The army has intervened, but the families remain caught in a situation that should be unimaginable. This is not the Israel I want to defend. And saying that does not make me less Zionist. For me, it is precisely because I am a Zionist that I cannot be silent. Zionism cannot simply mean having a Jewish state. It must also force us to ask what kind of Jewish state we are building. A Jewish state in which a Palestinian family can be terrorised in its home while extremists attempt to take its land is not strengthened by our silence. A state in which extremists believe they can act above the law is not made safer by looking away. We should be capable of holding more than one truth at once. Hamas committed the atrocities of October 7. Hersh, Carmel, Eden, Almog, Alex and Ori were hostages, and Hamas murdered them. And Palestinian civilians have the right to live safely in their homes without being terrorised by Israeli extremists. There is no contradiction between those statements. There should never have been one.
Perhaps that is what I keep returning to when I think about the Beautiful Six. Hersh's family fought for him because his life was infinitely precious. Every parent understands that instinctively about their own child. The challenge for a society is whether we can recognise that humanity in someone else's child too.
Israel is approaching an election that I believe will be one of the most consequential in its history. This election cannot only be about replacing politicians. It has to be about restoring sanity.
Restoring the understanding that human life matters. That democracy matters. That the rule of law matters. That Jewish values cannot be reduced to sovereignty over territory. That disagreement does not make someone an enemy. That compassion is not weakness. And that the future of Israel cannot belong to those who shout the loudest, threaten the most or push us further apart. Two years ago, we fought to bring the Beautiful Six home. They were our WHY then. They must remain our WHY now. We owe it to Hersh, Carmel, Eden, Almog, Alex and Ori. We owe it to the families who fought for them. And we owe it to the generations who will inherit the Israel we leave behind. It is time for the turning point we hoped would come two years ago.
It is time to bring sanity back.
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