(Day 766) Swords of Iron – “Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, laid to rest with our ancestors”

Chaim starts by letting his viewers know he’s filming from the funeral of Har Goldin, whose remains were returned to Israel for a proper burial this past week 11 years after his dead body was kidnapped into a Hamas tunnel during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Chaim gives a short history lesson about that operation, and subsequent operations that all led up to the Swords of Iron War, which still isn’t over despite the ceasefire. He also talks about the efforts by Goldin’s parents and others to secure the release of his remains so he could receive a proper burial. Chaim says he himself was part of that effort, which included talks with senior officials in Egypt and many other countries and organizations including the Red Cross, various UN agencies, etc.

For their part, Hamas brandished his personal weapon as a war trophy and bragged about their capture of him and did many other cruel and barbaric things to play psychological games with his family and the Israeli public.

Chaim explains that it is an important part of Jewish culture for remains to be buried with their people, and it goes back to Jacob’s instructions to his sons in Genesis 49:29; Then he charged them and said to them: “I am to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,

There are several other passages of Scripture where this principle is evident, and it has become a very important part of Jewish culture over the centuries.

Chaim says that he believes soon the last of these remains will be returned to Israel for burial, so these heroes can be “gathered to their people” as the Scripture says. He says that Goldin is a national hero and also a national symbol of tis determination that no one ever gets left behind