Iris Weinstein, whose mother Judih was killed in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 poses for a portrait on Nov. 1 in Ottawa. She wants to bring her mother's remains back to Canada.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail
The daughter of Judih Weinstein, a Canadian whose body is believed to be held by Hamas, wants the Liberal government to stop twinning demands for a ceasefire in Gaza with the release of hostages.
Iris Weinstein said linking the two dehumanizes the hundreds of people kidnapped by Hamas in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. It also holds them responsible for ending the continuing war, a mindset she calls “insane.”
Of course everyone wants a ceasefire, Ms. Weinstein told The Globe and Mail in an interview.
“But to put and to hold the hostages to the position where they need to solve the Middle Eastern crisis? It’s ridiculous,” she said.
Ms. Weinstein spoke with The Globe after two days of meetings in Ottawa this week, including face-to-face discussions with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and others in her latest personal appeal to Canadian leaders to not abandon her mother.
“Most parliamentarians don’t even remember my mom, that she’s there,” Ms. Weinstein said.
“The most important thing to me is that they just even say her name.”
Judih Weinstein and her husband Gad Haggai were killed on Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7 when, during their regular morning walk in the fields, Hamas militants invaded, one of several attacks that day that killed 1,200 people. Hamas also took more than 200 hostages.
The Weinstein and Haggai deaths were confirmed in December, when their kibbutz also announced their bodies were in Gaza.
Seven Canadian citizens, as well as a person described as having strong ties to Canada, were killed on Oct. 7.
Israel’s military response to the Hamas attacks, now expanded into Lebanon and Iran, has killed more than 40,000 people.
As the war continues, the Liberal government’s official policy response to any development routinely includes the line “We urgently call for a ceasefire and the immediate release of hostages,” something all Western countries are doing, Iris Weinstein said.
But Canada is forgetting it has a hostage in Gaza, and so too are Canadians.
“So it’s not just Canada, but I need Canada not only to demand but to also acknowledge they have a hostage there. And this is inhumane. It’s a stand-alone humanitarian global crisis,” she said.
“We can’t just wait for a ceasefire.”
Ms. Weinstein is also calling on the government to use its funding leverage with the International Committee of the Red Cross to demand the agency visit any still-living hostages and find a way to bring the bodies of the dead out of Gaza.
But what primarily brought her to Ottawa, Ms. Weinstein said, is the chance to look political leaders in the eye and remind them the hostages exist, were treasured by their families and deserve to be returned to them – not be held as bargaining chips, or have it be suggested that what happened to them is justified, as some leaders try to do, she said.
“Me being there, I showed them reality. I humanized my mother, I connected them to the amazing woman that she was, who I’m sure they would love,” Ms. Weinstein said.
Judih Weinstein, a teacher, was born in the United States and grew up in Toronto, before later moving to Israel. She had four children and seven grandchildren, and her own mother still lives in Toronto.
With no body, and only Israel Defense Forces information saying both her parents dead, their daughter sometimes isn’t even sure she should believe they are. Maybe the evidence was digitally altered, she said. Maybe her mother just fainted and is still alive.
She and the families of all those held hostage – among them her friends and their families from the kibbutz – have yet to be able to mourn, or to properly grieve, a state of being she calls akin to “psychological terror.”
“It is still Oct. 7 in my mind.”