Zvi Zussman, whose son Ben tragically lost his life during the conflict in Gaza, recently shared his thoughts with Arutz Sheva about his son’s legacy and the initiative he has launched aimed at helping secure the release of hostages from Gaza.
Zussman reflected on his son, saying, “Ben was our oldest. He was 22 years old when he was killed in Gaza. Ben dedicated a lot of his life to things that were very important for him, such as table tennis and Arabic which he studied on his own. Ben was a special child; he had amazing communication with us and we shared many thoughts and conversations with him through the whole army service. He was a good friend to many people and had made many, many good friends throughout the years.”
He continued, recounting the events leading up to Ben’s death, “On Shabbos, October 7th Ben had already finished his service and was supposed to start a course in a special security unit, so he had no reserve army unit to go to. On October 7th Sarit, my wife, and I went to give blood at Magen David Adom already at 09:00. Ben said he was not going to join us because he was going to try to draft himself. He drafted himself unofficially on the same day, but officially only 19 days later, when the paperwork was taken care of and as part of the comeback unit. He was killed on December 3rd, right after the first ceasefire, when over 100 captives were released.”
Zussman also discussed his new initiative designed to aid the hostages’ return, explaining, “This coming Shabbos is the parsha of Vayeshev. When the oldest brother realizes that Yosef is no longer in the pit, he goes to his siblings and says, ‘what am I going to do and say? How do we take things from this point on?’ I felt right away that there’s something that’s calling us on this Shabbos to take action. So I initiated a ‘Shabbos for the Hostages.’ We opened a website and there are different initiatives that people could either connect to or initiate in their own communities around the country and around the world. Our main message is, ‘we all are calling, to ourselves and to our leaders that this is the time to get our captives back home.’”
Though there are distinct groups—families of the fallen soldiers and families of the hostages—Zussman emphasized that the values guiding his actions unite them, saying, “I see things in values; there are different type of values and people view values differently. I don’t want anybody to understand here that I believe that my values are the right values, but when I look at values of life, of mutual responsibility, of justice, moral responsibility, to me things connect right away. Today it gives us one clear message, ‘we must do everything we can to bring the hostages back home.’”
He recounted a conversation with Ben, sharing, “I spoke to Ben on the Friday night, nine days before he was killed, and that was after the ceasefire was announced and hostages were beginning to be released. I knew from him that he was worried that maybe because of a ceasefire, we will be receiving back our hostages, but soldiers are going to be in danger. Unfortunately Ben paid the price. He was killed in an incident in a home where the house had already been cleaned from terrorists, twice even, but I know that Ben, the soldiers, the society, the government are there to save civilians and to work for our security. To me it’s very clear now that if we have civilians and soldiers who are in danger in the hands of the terrorists, I know we need them to agree also to release them [the hostages], but we have to do everything we can from our side.”
Zussman concluded, expressing his conviction, “I’m convinced that if the IDF and the government, with the backup of the society, are clear that what they want to do now is release hostages, we will manage to release them, and that’s what we have to do.”
Calling for global support, he said, “I encourage everybody around the world, who are more than welcome to visit the website, and also join a live stream of prayers which we will be running, together with Mizrachi Olami, from the Kosel this coming Friday at 10:00 a.m. Everybody is invited. There is also a link to the live stream on our website.”
“But,” he added, “we must remember that praying is important, but actions are what’s needed.”
{Matzav.com Israel}