SEPTEMBER 19 • 2024 | 5
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might bring more of the hostages
home. Last month, after he told Time
magazine (in English) that he was
“sorry, deeply, that something like
this happened” on Oct. 7, many of
his critics found his words, absent
a call for a full accounting of what
went wrong, inadequate.
“He’s sorry, as if he was someone
from the United Nations who was
unconnected to the event,” wrote
Nehemia Shtrasler, a columnist for
the left-wing Haaretz newspaper.
Danya Ruttenberg, an American
rabbi and author of On Repentance
and Repair, a book about apologies
and forgiveness, said there is a differ-
ent valence to “I’m sorry” depending
on the speaker.
When a government official says it,
she said, “it’s both a lovely sentiment
and kind of meaningless, because
what would they have done differ-
ently? Is it, ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t have
saved your child,’ or is it, ‘I’m sorry
we prioritized X, Y and Z and we
should have made other choices’?”
By contrast, “when you have pro-
testers saying it, it’s an acknowledge-
ment that they, too, are responsible,
it’s an owning of that responsibility,
and to me that’s beautiful.”
She quoted a line by the late
American rabbi, activist and theolo-
gian, Abraham Joshua Heschel: “In
a free society, some are guilty, but all
are responsible.”
“I think it’s exactly that,” Rutten-
berg said. “They are acknowledging
that they are part of the greater
communal body that also failed the
parents and families of those who
were murdered, and they are taking
responsibility.”
In emotional remarks at her son’s
funeral, Rachel Goldberg-Polin used
the language of apology in ways that
reflected all the anguish and contra-
dictions of the past 11 months.
She recalled how her son texted
the family from a bomb shelter on
Oct. 7 when he was badly injured
and had witnessed his best friend
Aner Shapira killed by a Hamas gre-
nade. “You had lost your arm, and
you thought you were dying. You
wrote to us, ‘I’m sorry’ because you
knew how crushing it would be for
us to lose you, so you fought to stay
alive … all this time. But now, you
are gone,” she said.
She also offered her own apology
to Hersh, despite spending near-
ly every day since his kidnapping
traveling and lobbying for his and
the other hostages’ release. “
At this
time, I ask your forgiveness. If ever
I was impatient or insensitive to
you during your life, or neglectful
in some way, I deeply and sincerely
request your forgiveness,” she said.
“If there was something we could
have done to save you and we didn’t
think of it, I beg your forgiveness.
We tried so very hard. So deeply and
desperately. I’m sorry.”
Andrew Silow-Carroll is editor at large of the
New York Jewish Week and managing editor
for Ideas for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Families attend the funeral of slain hostage Eden Yerushalmi, killed in Hamas
captivity in the Gaza Strip, at a cemetery in Petach Tikva, Israel, Sept. 1, 2024. The
sign reads, “Sorry, Eden.”
AVSHALOM SASSONI/FLASH90
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