One week ago, the world awoke to the devastating news that confirmed rumors rampant on social media: The bodies of six Israeli hostages – including high-profile American Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin – had been recovered in a terror tunnel in Gaza.
The news of the executions sent a shock wave through the civilized world, awakening the horror, fear and grief of what took place nearly one year ago, according to experts in war and trauma.
“The murder of the hostages evoked the losses of October 7 and the feeling of being deliberately targeted and destroyed,” according to Dr. Samantha Nutt, founder and president of War Child USA and War Child Canada. “Kids were at a music festival where there is a juxtaposition of love and innocence and a bohemian feeling,” she said, adding that she has a son the same age as Goldberg-Polin.
Nutt recalled the fate of her good friend Margaret Hassan, a humanitarian worker for CARE in Iraq, who was kidnapped in Baghdad and executed 20 years ago this November. She was pregnant with her son at the time and the shock and grief she experienced made her unable to get out of bed or stop crying for days. The execution of Goldberg-Polin triggered Nutt’s memories of the murder of her friend, she said.
In the video that her captors made, Hassan had called for the withdrawal of British troops in Iraq and “was made to beg for her life.” “I had that same feeling watching Hersh when Hamas released that video of him, asking for an end to the war and being used under duress,” she said. “You could see his exhaustion and surrender. The torture felt personal and familiar.”
Dr. Samantha NuttPhoto: The Media LinePersonal and familiar characterize the trauma felt by the murder of the hostages, according to trauma specialist Sheri Perlman. “The entire country is experiencing PTSD.”
Since October 7, Perlman has spent a significant amount of time in Israel and is exploring the feasibility of opening the Tali Center for Health and Wellness, an integrative healing center for trauma that would incorporate a variety of modalities, including reiki, shiatsu, EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), cranial-sacral therapy, massage, journeying, and psychotherapy.
Perlman spoke about the effect of the past year on the general population. “People’s sympathetic nervous systems are activated. They are in high-stress mode,” she said. “The distress is pervasive. Kids don’t want to talk to their parents; Everyone is holding it together, but they are about to fall apart. Will the country survive if people are in survival mode?”
No matter where they are located, people connected to Israel can feel like they are falling apart at this moment, reported Rabbi Naomi Kalish, the Harold and Carole Wolfe Director of the Center for Pastoral of Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS). Asked specifically about the resonance of the murders of the six Israeli hostages, she said: “Psychologically, everyone is having their own unique experience; grief awakens old grief.”
Sheri PerlmanPhoto: The Media LineCertainly, the execution of the hostages recalls the events of October 7. Still, Kalish said that for many who attended JTS in the mid-1990s – as she did – the hostage executions sparked memories of the 1996 murders of students Matthew Eisenfeld and Sara Duker in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem. “Those of us who were at school at that time are re-experiencing grief and horror,” she said.
The outrage of having the cataclysmic killings denied or ignored amid stepped-up anti-Israel protests was addressed by Lizzy Savetsky, a Jewish activist. In her video post this past week, she walked with her family in Manhattan while masked pro-Palestinian protesters chanted “Long live the intifada” and other slogans. “I am shaking," Savetsky wrote. "We were walking home from lunch with our family in our completely distraught state and we were blocked from crossing the street by these soulless terror supporters chanting for MORE violence.”
Rabbi Naomi KalishPhoto: The Media LineJTS’s Kalish addressed the effect that denial of an atrocity can produce in a person or group connected to the victim. The lack of empathy for the murder of the hostages “fits into the larger context of the lack of recognition of grief. In general, the politicization and dramatic polarization of discourse have left very little or no room for nuance,” she said.
The current discourse around Israel/Gaza often denies that there is a personal experience on the Israeli side and calls into question who has the right to grieve. This is insidious, she added. “Denial contributes to dehumanization. I think the whole thing is about dehumanization.”
For Dr. Joe Chuman, activist and former professor of human rights at Columbia University and the United Nations University for Peace, the shock over the murder of the hostages was matched by the shock that they had been kept alive by Hamas, if only as bargaining chips or for cynical purposes.
Chuman spoke about the complexity of the war and the “special horror” of the fact that so many of the Israelis who were murdered on October 7 in the kibbutzim of the Gaza border area were left-leaning, and committed to peace and coexistence with their Palestinian neighbors in Gaza.
Dr. Joe ChumanPhoto: The Media LineHe also addressed the unique and personal trauma of being a progressive Zionist American Jew who is “very disturbed by elements in the college demonstrations that are anti-Zionist” as well as by the prospect that Donald Trump might win reelection, creating a scenario he fears would imperil both Israel and America. Chuman spoke about the emotional stress of living in these two realities. “My head is reeling,” he said.
Perhaps no one can address the unique horror, grief, and trauma of the murders of the six Israeli hostages better than Judea Pearl, father of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
“When I saw the anti-Israel rhetoric that came out in response to this atrocity, I put up a very short post which said, ‘Come on, guys, can you let us mourn our dead in solemnity and reflection … rather than remind us of your disgusting existence on this planet?’” he said in an interview.
Pearl called Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s eulogy “very impactful” and was especially drawn to her statement: “Justice is on our side. We will continue to work for the right inspired by your example.”
“This is exactly how I felt when tragedy fell upon Danny, my son. We harnessed ourselves to fight the hatred that took his life,” he said.
Committing oneself to the fight for justice is one effective response to the overwhelming trauma. Pearl confided that though he had been asked over the past several months to give a message to the families of the hostages, he declined, feeling that he “represented a failure. I didn’t succeed in saving Danny. I felt it was not the right thing to remind them of what happened to Danny,” he said, referring to his murder in 2002 by Islamist Pakistani terrorists.
Now, he says, "in lieu of words of consolation, I can say that time does heal, especially when it is combined with the commitment to fight and to change the world.”
War Child’s Nutt affirms Pearl’s proactive prescription for dealing with trauma. “One of the great things I have in my life, which allowed me to endure horrific things – including in Darfur – is having a constructive outlet … being able to accomplish good things against extraordinary odds. That is extremely therapeutic and cathartic,” she said.
“I would encourage anyone to pursue ways they can have positive impact on people’s lives. This war is a long way from being done,” she concluded.