Melbourne’s Jewish community pays homage to the hostages
On Sunday morning, Melbourne’s Jewish community came together at Caulfield Park in solidarity with the more than 200 people kidnapped by Hamas from multiple locations in southern Israel on October 7th.
Photo: Simon Glance
Amidst a sea of Israeli flags, rows of people, some blindfolded, others simply holding pictures of those kidnapped, stood in for the real hostages who have been held captive in Gaza now for 15 days.
Event co-organiser Nirit Eylon, the Australian representative of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, said: “The community is bereft at what took place – the largest massacre of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust – and the community is mobilised and doing everything in its power to support the family and friends of the children, elderly, women and men who were taken hostage. Here in Australia we are fundraising, raising awareness and petitioning the Australian government to help bring them home now.”
Guy Givoni (drone)
Solidarity events are being held globally. On Friday night, outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, families of Israelis held hostage set a symbolic shabbat table with more than 200 empty seats for the hostages. In Sydney too the Jewish community placed 200 empty seats at a long table for what was another gruelling shabbat for the families and friends of the missing.
The volunteer-based Hostage and Missing Families Forum was formed less than 24 hours after the horrific Hamas attack. It offers families holistic support and professional assistance, and advances ongoing efforts through all channels – locally, regionally and globally – to ‘bring them home’. The Forum is calling for the international community to help free their loved ones.
