Jewish group sends 100,000 letters to Biden urging continued support of Israel

Shnaider expressed his outrage that, in his view, more of the world’s concern was focused on the WCK strike than the hostages being held by Hamas.

“When was the last time we heard from our hostages?” he asked. “We don’t know if they are alive, we hope they are alive, we pray for them to be alive, but where is the world? … They don’t deserve a line in a newspaper today or on CNN?”

Recalling the image of little Ariel, 4, dressed up as Batman last year and told his teacher that he flies and saves people, Shnaider said, that he has “more courage than anyone in the UN, who have done nothing. They said ‘No we can’t do that. We don’t have power to do that.’ They told me that personally. And the Red Cross? Nothing.”

Pointing to a photo of the family, he said, “can you imagine what they look like [now]? They don’t look like that, smiling … they don’t weigh that much.”

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh was abducted by Hamas after his being injured by a grenade on October 7, spoke at the press release via a prerecorded message.

Noting her son is a dual U.S.-Israel citizen who was “brutally kidnapped” she said, everyone has to do their part “to make sure that day 180 does not turn into day 280, 380, 480.

“This cannot be acceptable,” Goldberg-Polin said. “It is a failure of the human species. And we call upon our leaders our us leaders get our people out.”

In addition to asking Biden to continue supporting Israel in the war with Hamas, the letter, which was signed by nearly 185,000 people, also asked that the government do everything possible   to free the hostages and do more to combat antisemitism in the United States.