Forrest Gumping through Israeli History
By Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS
This past week in Israel was historic, but not as the nation or the world’s Jewish community expected. It was both historic and tragic. As Shabbat concluded in Israel last Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces discovered six hostages in Gaza dead, including the well-known and much-prayed-for Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin. For Israelis, it was the worst news since October 7, with many saying it felt like that extremely dark day all over again. It marked both a week of mourning and protest that will be part of the country’s historical narrative. Being in Israel, I had the choice to actively participate or observe passively, as I had most of my life. I chose the former. Being in Jerusalem at this time feels like being in the midst of history. Joining in on these historical moments felt like I was Forrest Gump, appearing by chance in the greatest moments of American history.
The country and Jews worldwide mourned the six slain hostages, but in far different ways. While the Diaspora mourned through prayer and community gatherings, Israel responded with anger and protests, culminating in the largest protest in Israel’s history by the end of the week. Although I do not have a doctorate, I have spent my career writing about history and, as a journalist, writing the first draft of history. My areas have been American and Jewish history, and I have extensively written about American and Israeli politics and diplomatic relations.
Despite writing extensively about history, I have spent the majority of my life as a passive observer, writing from my home in Montreal. While I had academic knowledge, I lacked firsthand knowledge of the events I was writing about. To put it mildly, my life and travel experiences were quite limited. This is the first time I am experiencing history firsthand, not through a screen. Oasis, one of my favorite music groups currently experiencing a resurgence, named their 1997 album Be Here Now. Being in the here and now changes the way one views historic events; it’s more than what happens; it’s the intangibles, feelings, smells, weather, emotions, and undocumemted sights that give that dimension, only ever captured in oral histories. Still, it can never be the same as witnessing it all.
For months, and especially the last couple of weeks, protests organized by the Hostages and Missing Family Forum all over the country, the largest being in Tel Aviv, while the most significant were on Azza Street in Jerusalem in front of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official residence. Most of the protests happened on Saturday nights after Shabbat ended. Last week, as protests ended for the week, the military announced they had recovered the bodies of six of the hostages in a tunnel beneath Rafah, in southern Gaza. Among those found were Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Master Sgt. Ori Danino.
The country protested and mourned as the families laid their loved ones to rest far too young, their lives stolen before reaching their full potential or even having a chance to live. On Monday, Israel’s largest labor union announced a general strike, warning of a nationwide shutdown until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaches an agreement with Hamas regarding the return of the remaining captives. A sweeping strike across Israel had the potential to halt the nation’s economy. The demonstrations, involving hundreds of thousands in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and other locations, caused significant disruptions to flights, hospitals, and banks. The government successfully secured a ruling in Israel’s labor court to bring an early conclusion to the general strike. Families of detained hostages, public figures, and certain ministers expressed hope that these developments could force Netanyahu to change his approach.
This week, protests have been ongoing across the country. On Monday, thousands of people attended Hersh’s funeral and burial at Jerusalem’s Har HaMenuchot cemetery. A procession lined the southern suburban streets of Jerusalem, sending the family off to the cemetery. As their black van and the city bus I was sitting on passed through the street, flags lined the sidewalk. The traffic and the sheer number of cars trying to reach Jerusalem’s Har HaMenuchot cemetery at the city’s outskirts made reaching there an over-an-hour ordeal. I arrived, as did so many others, after the families’ and President Isaac Herzog’s poignant speeches, which were replayed and reprinted all over the world. Walking up and downhill to the burial site was both physically and spiritually draining, as the sun beat down on thousands. When we all arrived at the spot, many looked to the higher cemetery levels to see what was happening. I managed to push myself quite enough to see the family, Hersh’s parents, Rachel and Jon, and his sisters up close. We all saw them on our television screens, in news reports, the Democratic National Convention, their words in print, but nothing can prepare you for seeing the anguish on his mother’s face; it was haunting. For me, that was the takeaway from the exhausting afternoon and the almost impossibly long wait and bus ride back to southern Jerusalem.
As the protests intensified, I reverted to observing the historical events from a third-person perspective. The news of clashes with police and arrests dissuaded me, as no one desires to face arrest in a country, particularly if they are not citizens. I also postponed attending the Goldberg-Polin shiva, despite having been just a block away at the Hader Mall earlier in the week. There, the family was seated in a tent, with hundreds of people joining them for morning, shacharit, and evening mincha maariv prayers. I was either sitting or waiting in line to offer a few words of condolence. I finally went on Thursday evening, just as the prayers were about to start. Unbeknownst to what I was doing, I ended up sitting behind Hersh’s mother and sisters and was able to see his father conduct the prayers with a shiur, breaking up both prayers. Again, the pain on Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s face got to me — her frailty and inability to stay around in between and after the prayers as her husband spoke with the well-wishers.
As visitors wrote their condolences on the condolence boards and books, I found myself wondering, “Who am I and what could I say to comfort them? Words are not and never enough; I know this because I have lived it.” I lost my mother a year and nearly ten months ago; she was the last close family I had. I’m still not over it. I lost my father 28 years ago this year, and only the death of my mother replaced the hurt I still felt for his premature death. Throughout the mourning process until now, I have been mostly alone; the comfort and support I received were limited; I had to fight for survival rather than grief with my mother, who had been my best friend, mentor, and entirely devoted mother. As I stoically staved off tears this week, as I prepared to go to shul on Shabbat, the tears flowed. The national mourning made me miss her more, and I yearned for her advice and guidance. I know that despite the national and worldwide support, Rachel Goldberg-Polin will never be the same; the hurt will remain for as long as she lives, and with each passing piece of information about her son’s captivity, last moments, and the Hamas-taken video only causing an additional stab of pain, nothing will ever be enough to ease that.
The week in Israel capped off with the largest rally in its history after Shabbat in Tel Aviv, with over 500,000 attending on what was the 11-month anniversary of the Hamas attacks, with smaller ones in cities across Israel, including at Jerusalem’s Paris Square, where a total of 200,000 protesters attended in the remaining cities. I knew I had to go after everything. I have never been a protester; I grew up reveering the 1960s anti-Vietnam War movement, only realizing after further study in university that I was only enamored with pop culture, music, and romanticism, but had I been around, I would not have been involved. I was hesitant to attend, but as I drove through with the bus, I felt compelled to participate.
The majority of the protesters were older people in their fifties and older, in contrast to the majority of youth-led protests. As each hostage’s name and photo appeared on the large screen, the crown chanted achshav, which became the rally’s battle cry. The rally featured family members of those who lost their lives in the October 7 Hamas attack, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 hostages, with only 101 still in captivity. The rally was a powerful display of solidarity. Those present called for Netanyahu to agree with a deal that would release hostages. They also demanded a ceasefire, the removal of the current government, and a renewed general strike aimed at exerting economic pressure to facilitate an agreement.
Among the speakers included Gal Goren, who lost her parents, Avner and Maya Goren, on October 7. She holds Netanyahu personally responsible for the hostages’ ongoing captivity, and she called on the demonstrators to persist in their efforts for a hostage deal. The star speaker for the crowd was Moshe Shapira, whose son Aner tragically lost his life at a Supernova rave on October 7. Shapira’s courageous actions provided refuge for several individuals, including his friend Hersh, who, despite losing an arm, managed to last more than 11 months in captivity. The protest ended in a religious fashion with several people blowing the shofar as we are in the middle of the month of Elul.
The crowd hoped their actions would affect the government and Netanyahu’s negotiations to free the remaining 101 hostages. You could feel the pain, anger, and exhaustion Israelis have felt for the past 11 months. Still, after the protests started disbursing, attendants clamored to the stands to buy memorabilia, mostly t-shirts, whose funds would go to support the families of the hostages. On Sunday, the never-ending cycle continued with news of a terror attack on the border with Jordan, additional details about the hostages’ last moments and their alleged living conditions, and the IDF’s perceived closeness to freeing them. We must acknowledge that Hamas is solely responsible for the brutality; emotions cloud all decisions; negotiators, including those from the US, understand that after last week’s executions, we cannot reward Hamas with negotiations for a ceasefire; and most importantly, the hostage exchange is moot. However, how do we strike a balance when 101 lives are still at stake?
Surrounded by the emotions of the week, I saw it all more gray than the black and white portrayed in objective journalism or by historians. What made Forrest Gump a timeless film portraying big moments in American history, including the anti-Vietnam protest movement, was the way Forrest felt and the complex emotions he witnessed as he found himself in major historical moments without effort. This past week, I delved into a new dimension and came to the realization that nothing can adequately prepare you for the overwhelming experience. You claim to know everything academically until you become a part of the events even as a small participant, and I am realizing I am just as lost and rolling with it as Forrest Gump did; we are all here.
Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS, is a historian, librarian, journalist, and artist. She is pursuing an MA in Jewish Education at the Melton Centre of Jewish Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author of the recently released “On This Day in History…: Significant Events in the American Year,” and “A Constant Battle: McGill University’s Complicated History of Antisemitism and Now anti-Zionism.” She has a BA in History and Art History and a Masters in Library and Information Studies from McGill University. She has done graduate work in Jewish history at Concordia University as part of the MA in Judaic Studies, where she focused Medieval and Modern Judaism. Her research area is North American Jewish history, and her thesis was entitled “Unconditional Loyalty to the Cause: Southern Whiteness, Jewish Women, and Antisemitism, 1860–1913.” Ms. Goodman has been researching and writing about antisemitism in North American Jewish History, and she has reported on the current antisemitic climate and anti-Zionism on campus for over fifteen years.
She is also the author of among others, “Silver Boom! The Rise and Decline of Leadville, Colorado as the United States Silver Capital, 1860–1896” (2008), “On This Day in the History… Of American Independence Significant Events in the Revolutionary Era, 1754–1812” (2020), and “We Used to be Friends? The Long Complicated History of Jews, Blacks, and Antisemitism” (2020). She contributed the overviews and chronologies to the “History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–2008,” edited by Gil Troy, Arthur M. Schlesinger, and Fred L. Israel (2012). She is the former Features Editor at the History News Network and reporter at Examiner.com, where she covered politics, universities, religion, and news. She currently blogs at Medium, where she was a top writer in history, and regularly writes an “On This Day in History (#OTD in #History)” Feature. Her scholarly articles can be found on Academia.edu.
