By New York Post (Opinion) | Created at 2024-12-24 22:21:12 | Updated at 2024-12-25 13:09:21
15 hours ago
As Hanukkah dawns, a deal that could bring my grandfather and 99 other hostages home from Hamas captivity after more than a year of suffering may finally be within reach.
Every Hanukkah, my grandfather Shlomo Mantzur, a true handyman, was in his element as he crafted his own menorahs.
He always won the yearly menorah-making competition at his home of Kibbutz Kissufim in southern Israel.
We used to call him the Light of the Family, with that big smile that would spread warmth wherever he went.
Now, that light has been taken from us.
At 86, my grandfather is currently the oldest hostage held in Gaza.
The same man who survived the horrors of the Farhud in Iraq as a child in 1941 is now living through another nightmare.
Back then, they broke into his family’s home, beat his parents and committed unspeakable acts that haunted his dreams. Yet somehow he never let that darkness define him.
My grandparents kept a small gray and turquoise clay sign at the entrance to their home in the kibbutz. The sign, marked with a little hamsa hand amulet on its left side, read “Life is Happy Here in This World.”
And it was true — life was genuinely happy there.
When friends worried about my visits to my grandparents in the Gaza envelope, I’d get excited instead. I felt safe there.
Until that black Saturday of Oct. 7.
On that day, Hamas terrorists shot through my grandparents’ door and walls before entering.
They handcuffed my grandfather and took him away in his sleepwear, while my grandmother Mazal (meaning “luck” in Hebrew) managed to escape to a neighbor’s safe room.
The clay sign at their home entrance was shattered by bullets, leaving just four haunting words: “Life is Happy Here.”
Since then, life has been anything but.
Last Hanukkah was our first without him. We gathered at my aunt’s house to light candles with my grandmother.
Everything felt wrong and sad. My young cousins lit the candles, but I can’t even remember if we sang the traditional songs.
The first time I spoke publicly about my grandfather was at the eighth-night candle-lighting ceremony organized by all the kibbutzim to honor those kidnapped and murdered on Oct. 7.
Now, we mark another Hanukkah without him.
Another Hanukkah of lighting candles, but there’s no real light — the candles burn, but we’re still in the dark.
The whole kibbutz knew my grandfather’s practice of reading Psalms every morning.
When my grandmother and all the surviving community were evacuated to a hotel, they placed an empty chair in the lobby and set his book of Psalms on it, waiting for his return.
He weighed only 125 pounds when the terrorists took him, and it’s been more than a year now.
We have no information about his condition, or whether he’s getting his medications. If he’s warm enough. If he’s even alive.
The world needs to know about my grandfather and all the other hostages still held in Gaza. Time is running out, especially for the elderly like him.
He should be here with us, celebrating his 60th wedding anniversary with my grandmother, playing with his 12 grandchildren and crafting new menorahs for the holiday.
My grandfather is hard of hearing — and was kidnapped without his hearing aids. In the darkness of captivity, through starvation, abuse and lack of medical care, he can’t even hear properly what’s happening around him.
He must be so scared and confused, alone in total silence.
Until he returns, his chair remains empty, his Tehilim book waits unopened, and the light he brought to our lives fades a little more each day.
For the past year, I’ve been traveling the world, meeting heads of state, religious leaders, diplomats and human-rights organizations — telling anyone who will listen that the world must do whatever it takes to bring them back.
Now we’re at a critical moment with a potential deal in the works that could finally bring my grandfather and all the hostages back home.
But we need your voice too. We need you to speak up, to share their stories, to keep their names alive.
Please, don’t let my grandfather be forgotten. Don’t let any of the hostages fade from memory.
Help us bring their light back home.
Noam Safir, a 21-year-old law student from Eilat, is the granddaughter of Shlomo Mantzur, the oldest hostage being held captive by Hamas in Gaza.
