Relative of Israeli hostage: ‘I felt Pope was with us in our pain'

By Joseph Tulloch and Roberto Cetera

Before his General Audience on Wednesday morning, Pope Francis met with 12 individuals whose family members are being held hostage by Hamas.

Following that meeting, the group held a press conference at Rome’s Il Pitigliani Jewish Centre.

They spoke of their grief over the kidnap of their family members, and of their hope to be soon reunited with them. One speaker, Michael Levy, held up a teddy bear belonging to the two-year old son of a relative of his, who is currently held captive in Gaza.

The group also discussed their meeting with the Pope earlier that morning. While they noted that, due to time constraints, not all of them had been able to speak with him, they thanked the Pope for listening to their stories, and for his “compassion”. 

Asked what further help the Church could give, one of the group of relatives – Moshe Leimberg – asked the Pope to keep speaking of the events of October 7, to “remind the world” of what happened on that tragic day.

After the press conference, the Osservatore Romano’s Roberto Cetera spoke to another member of the group, Rachel Goldberg, whose son has been taken prisoner by Hamas.

Roberto Cetera: Rachel, we meet again ten days after we met in Jerusalem and you sent a videomessage to the Pope. Finally, you are in Rome and you met the Pope. But what was your feeling in talking to Pope Francis?

Rachel Goldberg: I felt so honoured and grateful and truly blessed to have had that opportunity to meet with the Holy Father. I really felt his empathy. I felt that he was with us in our pain. And I felt very lucky that we had that opportunity.

Do you think that he recognised you, from your videomessage?

I don't think so. I think he probably gets thousands and thousands and millions of messages. But I felt a connection to his concern for us and for all the people, for all the hostages, and for all the people in Gaza who are also suffering.

And it gave gave me a lot of hope.

You mentioned that there are innocent victims from both sides.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that that's important to all caring people. And I think it's certainly really important to the Holy Father.