By Esti DeAngelis, Opinions Editor
When Emily Damari was released from Hamas captivity a few weeks ago, she held up her bandaged hand in what quickly became a symbol of triumph and resilience. She was missing two fingers, as Hamas had shot them off before kidnapping her fifteen months prior. There was something so indescribably heroic about that display, something so indescribably heroic about her. I can put it into words through comparison only: We celebrate three-fingered victory against all odds while terrorists and their allies around the world celebrate the people who shot her digits in the first place.
I’m brought back to a picture taken 25 years ago, of a Palestinian waving his bloody hands out of a window in Ramallah after having just taken part in the lynching of two Israeli soldiers. A crowd looks on and cheers. Today that bloody hand is featured on a popular pin calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Emily’s hand, meanwhile, has already become a popular WhatsApp sticker in Israel. Our heroes raise their hands not dripping in blood, but to celebrate survival.
The closer you examine the icons and symbols of the “free Palestine” movement, the more morbidly obvious it becomes that they embrace death and destruction. They cheer for the terrorists freed from Israeli jails in the ongoing hostage deal while neglecting the fact that among them are some of the worst mass murderers of the Second Intifada. Our heroes could not be more different. The closer you get to them, the more you realize how much we value life.
They say don’t meet your heroes, and if you’re a keffiyeh-donning Columbia student, I guess that’s true. If meeting your hero would cause the facade to crumble, maybe the label of hero shouldn’t be applied to them at all. Maybe, just maybe, if your hero would murder you at their first opportunity, they probably should have never been your hero in the first place. And maybe if you find this happening again and again, you should re-evaluate the group you are supporting.
Maybe real heroes only become more heroic with the closing of distance. With heroes like ours, that is certainly the case. I know this because I feel like I know the hostages who came out of Gaza these last few weeks as well as you can know someone you’ve never met. I researched them, listened to their families speak and shared their stories with anyone who would listen. And then they were freed, and I realized that none of us could really understand the depth of their courage and fortitude.
I’ve heard Emily Damari’s mother talk about the kind of person she is so many times, but still I learned more about her in the single moment that she raised her hand in the air than could be conveyed in any description. Liri Albag’s family has always described her as optimistic, but I only really understood just what that optimism looks like when she made a heart with her hands from the window of the helicopter that took her to an Israeli hospital. After 15 months, we can finally see the people behind the stories in free daylight, and discover what genuine heroism is.
We don’t know what these people have been through, but to survive in captivity for even a moment speaks to something so essentially endurant, so essentially resilient, that it is completely ineffable. Our jubilation at their return speaks to who we are as a nation. These are the people we celebrate: real, ordinary human beings who have become extraordinary. This is quite unlike our enemies, for whom there is no greater glory than blowing oneself up or sending one’s child to do the same. We value life and we value the people who, through indescribable adversity, fight to live it.
The people we choose to celebrate speaks to the core of who we are as a nation. They are our nation’s best representatives, and they are the people with whom we are most proud to share a Jewish identity. When Naama Levy put out a statement a few days after she was released, she thanked Am Yisrael for fighting for her. That made me realize something: We are the nation of Naama Levy. We are the nation of Emily Damari and Liri Albag and so many others with that same resilience, too. And that’s a nation I feel privileged to be a part of.
Photo Caption: (Left to right) A painting of Liri Albag, Naama Levy, Daniella Gilboa, Karina Ariev and Agam Berger in Hostage Square, Tel Aviv that reads, “Look them in the eyes.”
Photo Credit: Emily Goldberg