I logged into Facebook this morning and there in shadowy letters was a question prompting me to respond: What’s on your mind?
My mind is on the hostages in Gaza. Hundreds of murderers, rapists and terrorist are being release to gain their freedom.
These prisoners are released from Israeli jails well-fed and in good health. But the hostages? They are injured, starved, abused and tortured. How is this happening in 2025 when just 70 years ago the world proclaimed Never Again? Never Again!!!
The hostages that were released last week came with news of this young man (see link). He is one of many remaining in this hamas hell.
Still no news of Shiri Bibas and her two small children. I pray they are alive. What is the reason for continuing to hold such innocent helpless children.
These terrorists have perfected cruelty. Cruelty and evil that is impossible to understand.
For first hand information on life in Israel and well-thought analysis of the war and lives of hostages and their families follow Forest Rain Marcia on substack.
I think I have reached a point where nothing in life surprises me anymore, not even the extent of evil that exists in the world. Everyday I hear of a heinous crime and think there can be nothing more evil and yet it seems there is always something more. It is beyond shock and disbelief it now just brings sorrow and sadness.
With all the evil and trials that people face I believe an even greater surprise is the human spirit’s drive to go on. Some people have endured terrible losses, illness and tragic events and yet they find a way to go on and live productive lives and others seem to lose hope and fall into a deep abyss from which they cannot climb out.
These two opposing responses to life and its trials perplex me. Is it a conscious and continuing decision by those who overcome? Is this drive to overcome something we all have? Are these somehow stronger than others or do they rely on a higher power?
In my own life I have seen friends and family lose hope, they bury themselves in drugs and alcohol, they fall into deep depression and several have sadly taken their own lives. When I look back on my life, I see moments, periods of time, when I felt all hope was lost but I persevered. I have a notebook from the early 80’s in which I copied entire chapters from the book of Psalms. David often cried out to God about evil doers, injustice, heartaches and pain but he knew as I do…“And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you” Psalm 39:7
I have watched people that I thought were the strong and who had the most potential to be successful in life, succumb to defeat. One of life’s greatest blessings and it should be no surprise, is that I, meek, introverted, abused, uneducated have prevailed but, not I, but God with me. “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10
“Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.” Psalm 62:1-2
As I wrote about “Life’s Surprises” I realized today is Passover. Examining my thoughts and one’s ability to persevere in hardship and not lose hope, I realized it is the story of Passover, the story of the Jewish people. Freed from 400 years of slavery, seeing God’s hand in their redemption and even though their hope faded at times they never lost hope. Since then they have been exiled, they endured the pogroms, they’ve been massacred and expelled from their homes and most horrifically six millions Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Today, nearly 3500 years since the exodus from Egypt, the decedents of those that were freed are still facing hardship, trails, and persecution. Even through all these horrors, they are a people with hope, a people that are blessed with ingenuity and whose talents have blessed many the world over.
The Jewish National Anthem relays this hope. It is titled HaTikvah (“The Hope”)
As long as the Jewish spirit is yearning deep in the heart, With eyes turned toward the East, looking toward Zion, Then our hope -‐ the two-‐thousand-‐year-‐old hope -‐ will not be lost: To be a free people in our land, The land of Zion and Jerusalem.
I would like to start by saying I am not defending anyone who did not obey the airline rules about masking but what happens next and the things the airline rep says plus the actions of the German police is chilling.
On a recent flight from JFK to Frankfurt then to Budapest, it was announced that because Lufthansa is a German airline, passengers were required to wear a mask as it is German law. Some passengers including several of Jewish decent refused to wear a mask. When the flight arrived in Frankfurt “all” people whose appearance showed them to be Jewish or had Jewish sounding names were refused boarding on their connecting flight.
In the first video a passenger is trying to reason with the Lufthansa rep as he was not with the ones not masking and he did not know them. He wanted to know why he was refused boarding.
She says, “everybody has to pay for a couple.” —- “Jewish people were the mess, they made the problems.”
What? Does that sound that far from the Nazi rallying cry… Jews are the problem?
The passenger is astonished that in 2022, in a western country he would be refused boarding because of his race or religion. Surely, the airline staff had the ability to take the seat numbers and names of those who would not comply. Reportedly others who were not Jewish, who also refused to mask, were allowed to board.
The passengers who were denied boarding were section off behind a rope and the police were called. In the second video someone in the crowd calls the officer a Nazi. His reaction, his body language and demands to know who said it while holding the automatic rifle is horrifying.
There would be outrage if this happen to any other group of people. Would all whites be banned, all blacks, all Christians, or all Muslims? I would be on the news and cries for demanding justice from all walks of life. Thus far I have only seen this a a few Jewish news agencies and a week after the incident an article in the Jerusalem Post.
We say “Never Again” but anti-antisemitism is alive and growing. The growing hate between many groups is alarming and I pray we can turn our hearts away from hate and discrimination before it is too late.
In 1991, I visited Bergen-Belsen, a Nazi concentration camp near Celle, Germany. Although there were no gas chambers there, is estimated 36,000 people died there between 1943 and April 1945. On April 15th 1945, British troops liberated the camp. There they found 60,000 starving and deathly ill people in an overcrowded, unsanitary camp with a typhus epidemic spread throughout. These people, barely alive, were surrounded by the bodies of 13,000 who had recently died. The British, shocked and ill-prepared for what they found, attempted to control the spread of disease and help those that remained however, even with their best efforts, another 15,000 died after liberation. Of the many who died at Bergen-Belsen, the most well know were Margot and Anne Frank who reportedly died only weeks before liberation.
It was a cold February morning when I visited, it had snowed the night before, there were no footprints on the path, no others mourners had passed by. It was so quiet and surreal. Each step I took in the cold dry snow made a crunching sound that broke the silence like steps on shattered glass. As I walked among mass graves and memorials, I was struck by the peacefulness of the moment for a place where so many were tortured, starved and died from diseases and abuse. Near impossible comprehend such evil and hate.
My husband was with me on this journey to mourn and remember those who perished in this place. We both left with a deeper understanding of something that can never really be understood. It was sobering and it was that day a seed was planted in both our hearts to never forget the horrors of that time. It breaks my heart when people make comparisons to the Holocaust that diminish the overwhelming evil, torture, inhumane treatment and murder of an entire generation.
We say never again but antisemitism is on the rise worldwide today and sadly history has shown that hatred, although it kills, it does not die. Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day observed on the anniversary date of the liberation of Auschwitz. Today, I not only remember the 6 million Jews that were murdered during the Holocaust but I reaffirm my vow to speak out against antisemitism and hate ~ Never Again, Never Again this is my prayer.
“No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night. We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them. Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately.”
~ Elie Wiesel
These words spoken by a Jewish man born in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. He was deported by the Hungarian government to Auschwitz with his family at 15. His mother and youngest sister were murdered immediately while he and his father remained and labored at Auschwitz. They were later moved to Buchenwald where he helplessly listened as his father was beaten to death.When the camp was liberated in April 1945 he was 16 1/2 years old.
Elie Wiesel spent the rest of his life fighting against injustice and man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.In 1986 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Along with the quote above in his acceptance speech he says:
“I remember: it happened yesterday or eternities ago. A young Jewish boy discovered the kingdom of night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed”
In his 1999 book “Perilsof Indifference,” he says;
“Gratitude is a word that I cherish. Gratitude is what defines the happiness and humanity of the human being.”
ne is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night. We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them. Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately.”
Emyloom ~ Words Woven Within My Heart 