Hostage Crisis Touches New Haven At Broadway Memorial

Andrea Weinstein’s sister Judih is a person of peace. She’s vegan and loves teaching English and making puppets for the children on the southern Israel kibbutz where she has lived with her husband Gad Haggai, a musician and chef. She cherishes the collectivist living the kibbutz afforded her family, writes haikus to calm herself and others, and is critical of the right-wing Netanyahu government.

That life collapsed on Oct. 7, when Judih and Gad were two of hundreds of Israelis either kidnapped or gone missing in a cross-border terrorist attack waged by Hamas.

Andrea showed up in downtown New Haven Wednesday calling attention to her sister’s and brother-in-law’s plight as she desperately seeks information.

Weinstein and her husband Ben Silvert were two of roughly 50 people who gathered at the Broadway Triangle for the installation of a memorial to the 200-plus Israelis who were kidnapped by Hamas on a day that saw the brutal murder of 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians. In the ensuing weeks, Israel’s military has responded with a stepped-up blockade and airstrikes aimed at Hamas that have left roughly 8,000 Palestinians in Gaza dead, thousands of whom are children.

Wednesday’s installation was organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven. It featured the recreation of a kindergarten classroom — with brightly colored plastic chairs and desks and crayon drawings and toys. But no children. 

Instead, the faces and names of Israeli children who are being held hostage by Hamas were posted around the public greenspace, calling on New Haveners to remember the youngest hostages who were taken from their homes on Oct. 7 and remain missing to this day.

The vigil marked just the latest effort by New Haveners and Yalies to publicly reckon with and grieve the escalating violence in the Middle East. Click here to read a story about a vigil for Palestine held earlier in the week on Yale’s downtown campus and here to read about an event at Woodbridge’s Palestine Museum calling attention to Palestinian suffering in the conflict.

For Weinstein and Silvert, the kidnapping of hundreds of Israeli civilians by Hamas is not just a horror to read about in the news. 

Weinstein’s sister Judih Lynne Weinstein, 70, and brother-in-law Gad Haggai, 72, are two of those very hostages. At least, they have been deemed hostages by the Israeli government, because they are still missing. 

Andrea knows that both were shot and injured while out for a morning walk on the grounds of their home, Kibbutz Nir Oz, on Oct. 7. She knows that Judih called the kibbutz’s paramedic seeking help for her husband, who had been more seriously hurt than she. She knows that that ambulance never arrived because it was destroyed by Hamas militants. She has not heard from her sister or brother-in-law since.

“They’re considered hostages, but we don’t know what that means,” whether they are alive, Andrea said, holding up a piece of paper with a picture of her sister and brother-in-law beneath the word ​“KIDNAPPED.” They lead ​“peaceful, beautiful lives” in Israel, a country her sister had called home since 1978. If Judih is still ok, Andrea said with conviction, she knows her sister would be ​“helping people stay calm, through meditation and helping them write haikus.”

Click here to read an Oct. 11 story in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz about the couple and about their daughter’s quest to find out what happened to them and where they are.

Andrea, a rehab counselor who lives in the New Haven area, said that poetry and drawing and puppet-making were some of Judih’s passions. So was teaching English. She would incorporate all three into the lessons she teaches to school children on Kibbutz Nir Oz and elsewhere. 

The last time Andrea saw her sister was in September for a family celebration.

While Judih and Gad would regularly come to the United States, Silvert said, he and Andrea hadn’t been out to visit them at Kibbutz Nir Oz in 26 years. ​“It felt like a very safe place to raise a family,” he said. 

Asked what they want New Haveners to think about when they walk or drive by the Broadway memorial, and in particular to know about Judih and Gad, Andrea said her sister and brother-in-law are ​“compassionate, peaceful people who choose to live healthy creative lives while improving the lives of children and adults.” She asked for hope that they are safe.