Four hostages are home, and a funeral

A day of celebration and a day of mourning

Yesterday, Sunday, was a day of absolute elation for so many Israelis after the stunning rescue of Andrey Kozlov, Noa Argamani, Shlomi Ziv and Almog Meir Jan. We just….couldn’t believe it. To see them home, whole, smiling, greeted by their loved ones, their friends screaming with joy (great footage of that with Almog), hugging their people so tight — you could just feel the joy and the relief.

That was most of my Facebook footage. The other half were posts about Arnon Zamora, the elite Yamam counterterrorism unit operative who was killed in the operation. Zamora, by every single account, including one heartbreaking one by his sister-in-law, told of a special man, a husband and father of two boys, a guitar player, a family man who loved his people and his people loved him.

His sister-in-law wrote about the fact that Arnon always wore a swim shirt at the beach, covering up his impressive physique because, more relevantly, he didn’t want to get a sunburn, which would then possibly affect his Yamam work, and he wasn’t a showoff, he was a grownup.

This is just one of the many composites playing down my FB page, with the four rescued hostages, Arnon Zamora bottom left, and Gaza bottom right

His wife spoke last at his burial yesterday in Mount Herzl military cemetery, after all the eulogies about his heroism. She said she wanted to speak last because after all the stories of his heroism, he was, at his center, a husband and father, a son and brother, and they would be the ones who would remember him forever. I thought about how true that is for all of us; some people have wondrous careers and professions, accomplishing incredible things in their adult lives, but ultimately, we’re remembered by those who love us and mourn us longest. And that’s as it should be.

And now what? There are the side stories to the amazing rescue carried out on Shabbat morning. How Israelis in various towns and neighborhoods wrote notes to their Shabbat-observant neighbors, telling them about the rescue of four hostages, so they wouldn’t have to wait until after Shabbat to hear the wonderful news.

There was the sad story of the death of Almog Meir Jan’s father, at his home, alone, that probably took place before he heard the news about his son. Almog’s parents were divorced and he wasn’t in any kind of regular contact with his father, not for many years. Just a sad addendum to so many hard stories.

Noa Argamani has already seen her dying mother, who is in some kind of hospice setup at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov hospital with stage 4 brain cancer. It’s unclear if Liora Argamani completely understood that she was seeing Noa, but I’d like to believe she gets it, she knows that Noa is alive and was rescued.

Andrey Kozlov’s family arrived from Russia — he made aliyah on his own a couple of years ago, and was working at the Nova party when he was taken hostage. His family has traveled back and forth for months, rallying for his release.

From the Ben Gurion University of the Negev campus, where rescued hostage Noa Argamani is a student, the upper billboard stating that Noa was also supposed to begin her studies earlier this year, the lower billboard put up yesterday, saying Welcome to our Noa, we’re so happy you’re home, we’re waiting for you on campus”

Shlomi Ziv was reunited with his parents, his wife, his sisters — and I hope we’ll hear more from him soon.

There are the remaining 116 hostages — and for their families and the families of the hostages who were killed in Gaza captivity, this daring rescue operation smarts for them — it makes something twist in their guts, because it didn’t happen for their loved ones, and that’s painful, understandably so. I don’t imagine we’ll hear anyone speaking publicly about that.

And there is the public rhetoric about the prime minister, who rushed for photo-ops with the rescued hostages, but hasn’t paid a single shiva call or called any of the hostage families whose loved ones were killed in captivity, because he knows what kind of reception he’ll receive from them.

And there’s the hostage deal that’s still on the table, that Hamas appears to have rejected but hasn’t been fully pushed off the table. Thousands of people took to the streets on Saturday night, in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in so many other cities and towns, yelling for it, calling for it, pointing out that despite the wondrous rescue of the four hostages, and the bravery of Arnon Zamora, most of the other hostages can’t and won’t be rescued in that kind of operation.

Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, spoke on Channel 12 the other night, and commented that at least two million Israelis have to take to the streets in order for the prime minister and government to realize that this is what the country wants. Her thoughts were repeated by Nava Rozolyo, an activist leading some of the anti-government protests, who said pretty much the same, that Israelis have to take to the streets and the bridges, the town centers and interchanges, in order to show what the country’s mood and desire is right now.

We’ll see. I imagine we’ll see a ramping up in protests and numbers over the next weeks, particularly after Shavuot is marked this week. People feel there has to be a shift, an ending, a move to bring the hostages home, to get past this terrible place.

Taken from my Instagram feed, the photo on the left is of giant billboards upon exiting the train station, paid for by Bank Hapoalim, and welcome the hostages home; every pole in Tel Aviv is decorated with a pride flag and an Israeli flag for Pride month

And yet. I was in Ramat Gan briefly yesterday for a press conference about Fresh Paint, an annual art fair, Israel’s largest. It was held in an office tower, in the very posh surroundings of Harel, one of the country’s biggest insurance companies. In the lobby, there were tables of wine purveyors and cheesemakers, along with a dried flower stand, selling for the upcoming holiday.

Office workers were milling around, drinking their iced coffees and buying bottles of wine and packages of cheese. They were walking in the streets, heading to work, and there was a different feeling in the air, a sense of normality and routine. And honestly, that exists in a lot of places, because life has gone on. People go to work and school and maybe they also go to protests every evening or weekend, but for so many Israelis, it’s life as usual.

That’s okay in the sense that life has to go on in order for the country to continue functioning, for the economy to operate, for the purpose of holding things together. But we have to hold the rest of this in our hearts and minds because things aren’t normal, the country isn’t and the world isn’t and we can’t pretend otherwise.

It’s okay to go to work, to mark Pride, to gather for the holiday, as long as we’re marking this in some other way. Because things are definitely not back to normal. Not yet.