Thursday, April 03, 2025
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Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of
the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
Imagine a Jewish sage, Rabbi
Meir of Rothenberg, locked in a 13th-century dungeon. The Holy Roman
Emperor demands a ransom—a fortune the Jewish community is desperate to pay to
redeem their captive sage. Rabbi Meir, meanwhile, will not permit his flock to
pay his ransom.
Why? Because the Maharam of Rothenberg knew that this would
set a precedent. Pay the ransom and Jewish leaders would always be targets for
kidnapping.
Rabbi Meir endures seven years in captivity, then dies in prison. And still he
is not free, not even in death. The corpse of the Maharam is held captive for a
further 14 years; the final, lengthy indignity done to a true holy man. As
distinct from his evil “Holy Roman” captor.
Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg’s refusal to be ransomed is the story of a
selfless, godly man who sacrificed one person, himself, to protect his people
long-term. In their desire to redeem their sage, the Jewish community was
heedless of the wider implications for the Jewish nation, as a whole. What Rabbi
Meir did was beautiful and selfless. He stepped up for his people.
Now it is 2025, and Hamas is playing the same cruel stunt
pulled so long ago by King Rudolf I, holding as bargaining chips an estimated 20-24
live hostages and 35 hostage corpses. The hostage families whatever the
status of their loved ones, yearn for closure. Some of the hostage families already
know their loved ones are dead in Gaza. They ache to bury them. Others pray
their loved ones still cling to life. The not knowing is a torment. Rabbi Meir of
Rothenberg would tell us not to blink—giving in only emboldens the enemy. But
we blinked.
We blinked when we inked the Shalit deal. Then we set a precedent for now when
we swapped over 1,000 murderers for Gilad Shalit, including Yahya Sinwar, the
devious, truly evil mastermind of October 7.
It must be said: many of us were against the Shalit deal, despite the biased polls trumpeted by the biased MSM. We were way more than the measly 14% they cited. In fact, I knew very few people in favor of the Shalit deal. Why would anyone be in favor of releasing from prison a satanic monster like Ahlam al-Tamimi—someone who is gleeful to know that Jewish children died as a result of her evil machinations. Won’t she just want to do it some more? Now imagine her times one thousand.
Before we released Yahya Sinwar from prison, in that same
Shalit deal, we saved his life on Israel’s dime. Fine Israeli surgeons removed
his brain tumor in a world class hospital, and gave him another shot at destroying
the Jewish people in a way the world would never forget. This should be a stark
lesson for the Jews. Every terrorist we don’t shoot on sight, will try to do it
again.
Happily, Sinwar can no longer be said to be living proof of
this, because he is no longer among the living. The Jews finally did the right
thing and ended him for good.
Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg did not die only because of a principle. He died
to stop a vicious loop. Which is where we are right now. Hamas thrives on
our concessions—just think! The Shalit deal gave them Sinwar. The Witkoff deal
has already given them many Sinwars.
It must be faced. Israel has shown it will release
terrorists, many of them, for a single hostage. Then it all becomes a game of
how many terrorists they can get for 50 Jews, most of them dead. It’s true they
prefer the live ones, but a live Jew will pay a lot for a dead Jew, too. And in
fact, Israel has now released many, many terrorists from Israeli prisons—terrorists
with a recidivism
rate of 82%.
The Israeli dilemma, of course, is brutal: negotiate and
maybe save some hostages and retrieve the bodies of the others, or fight to
crush Hamas, and risk an endless round of October 7s.
If only we had someone with the Maharam’s wisdom today.
Someone who could advise us what to do now that we’ve effed messed up and
set the precedent. One that can only lead to great bloodshed. There can be no
other outcome.
Each negotiation leads to a jackpot of thousands of terrorists.
So why should Hamas let go the last of their bargaining chips, dead Jews and maybe
two dozen live Jews. They are surely worth thousands of terrorists, many
Sinwars let loose.
***
This must read from Elder speaks of a more contemporary rabbi’s take trading
terrorists for hostages: The
Lubavitcher Rebbe's view of hostage deals
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