It is with great sadness that Matzav.com reports the passing of Noam Shalit, the father of Gilad Shalit, who was abducted in 2006 and held captive by Hamas for more than five years. Noam passed away this evening at the age of 68, after suffering from leukemia and undergoing a bone marrow transplant. In recent weeks, he had been hospitalized in critical condition at Rambam Hospital in Haifa. His levayah will take place tomorrow at 13:30 in Mitzpe Hila.
During the long years that his son Gilad was held captive by Hamas, Noam waged a wide-ranging struggle for his release, which often included social activities and dialogue with officials. Noam, as a soldier himself in the Paratroopers Brigade of the IDF, fought in the Yom Kippur War on the southern front.
In 2008, he began leading the public struggle to bring his son back from captivity. At the end of June of that year, he and his wife Aviva set out on a journey from their home in Mitzpe Hila to the home of then-Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to increase public pressure for a release deal for his son Gilad, who was finally released in 2011. A year later, he resigned from his job at the Iscar factory, and in January 2012 he ran in the Labor Party primaries for the Knesset with the support of Shelly Yachimovich, but failed and remained off the list.
Yoel Marshak, one of the chiefs of staff for Gilad Shalit who worked closely with Noam, said of him: “He was a symbol of the father. He took responsibility for everything and led a move at the national level for the release of the son. We all consulted with him. In the end he made the decision. He navigated it like a strategist. He thought of everything. He was not afraid to confront, but as an experienced politician – and he was not a politician – he managed to walk between the drops but without letting go for a moment. He was so sensitive and so gentle.”
{Matzav.com Israel}
Noam Shalit “managed to walk between the driops” and feed his son.
But at what cost?
As a ransom for releasing Shalit, Israel had to release over a thousand security prisonners, many of them had blood on their hands and had to be recaptured after they went on and killed many more Jews.
But with “the passage of time” one does not remember all the bereaved families who lost loved ones due to the ill-fated ransoming.
We just remember that he managed to free his son.
All too true and sad. However Hashem runs the world, Its His cheshbon, not ours. We must do what we must do to protect a living Jew, and Hashem will protect us. Hashem freed Gilad Shalit. Noam z”l was a father who did all he could for his son, like all fathers. Success and failure is in Hashems hands.
Rav Edelstein shlita is right. We each need to improve something of ourselves, strengthen Am Yisroel on its spiritual level. May we hear no more tza’ar and only the sounds of Moshiach coming today.
Noam Shalit held an entire country hostage to his own personal agenda. Granted that any father would do the same but the spineless politicians ought to have stood firm.
Was he vaccinated?
Did you psychotherapist allow you to comment?