Good Wednesday morning.
Ed note: In celebration of Thanksgiving, the next Your Daily Phil will arrive on Monday. Have a meaningful Thanksgiving and a Shabbat shalom!
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on a renewed initiative by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles to combat antisemitism on local college campuses, and feature opinion pieces from Elana Frank and Jason Blazakis. Also in this newsletter: Yehuda Kurtzer, Julie Fisher and Jane Sherman. We’ll start with how Jewish communal organizations are responding to news that 50 hostages will be released from Hamas captivity in Gaza.
American Jewish groups expressed relief and appreciation for the impending release of some 50 Israeli hostages, specifically women and children, currently being held captive by Hamas in Gaza, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
At the same time, they lamented that the agreement does not include the nearly 200 other hostages, mostly civilian men and soldiers, who will remain in Gaza for the time being. The deal also requires the release of at least 150 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom have been convicted of attempted murder, as well as a limited pause in the fighting, which Hamas will likely use to regroup and resupply its forces.
“Jewish Federations [of North America] are relieved that after 45 excruciating days in Hamas captivity, 50 hostages are on their way home,” JFNA said in a statement. “This is a moment of relief, but let us not forget that Hamas continues to hold nearly 200 people hostage. We will continue to advocate every day for their freedom.”
The American Jewish Committee said it is “relieved that these hostages are slated to be returned home and deeply appreciates the role of President [Joe] Biden and his administration, and other world partners, in securing their release.”
While most major Jewish organizations put out statements lauding the release of 50 hostages, there were differences of opinion over the other conditions of the agreement.
The National Council of Jewish Women, which launched a campaign for the hostages last month, said it was “thrilled” by the release of 50 hostages, but stressed that “releasing 20 percent of the hostages is insufficient… The individuals still held captive are not statistics — they are real people with aspirations, dreams and families. Their prolonged captivity stands as a blatant violation of international humanitarian law, necessitating a robust global response.”
NCJW described the pause in fighting, which is expected to go into effect tomorrow, as a positive step, as it “allows for medical assistance and humanitarian aid for the hostages remaining in captivity and the Palestinian families suffering from the ongoing war in Gaza.”
Americans for Peace Now, going a step further, hailed the at least four-day cessation of hostilities, saying it “hopefully, will begin to shape a post-war reality on both sides of the Israel-Gaza border.”
While it backed the Israeli government’s decision, the Orthodox Union referred to the exchange as “one of the most morally and strategically complex and difficult decisions any group of elected officials can confront, making painful concessions to free hostages from the hands of their evil captors.”
“We support the Israeli government and urge them to not let this pause in the fire provide an opportunity for Hamas to reorganize and rearm,” Rabbi Moshe Hauer, the executive vice president of the OU, said in a statement. “We support the Israeli government in this painful decision, and we hold the world responsible for their complicity in their having to make it. You have failed those men, women and children held captive and you must not allow this travesty to continue.”
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