Hillary Goldberg
For thousands of years, through exile and destruction, pogroms, gas chambers and war, one truth has remained unshaken: The Jewish people survive because of the Jewish woman.
If you want to understand why the Jewish people are still here, you have to understand her. She is the first to carry, the first to fight, the first to suffer, and the first to rise. She is the mother who whispers Shema into the ears of her sleeping child. She is the grandmother who lights Shabbat candles in defiance of history. She is the daughter who carries the weight of generations and refuses to let it break her. She is the truth teller who will not let history be rewritten, who refuses to let the world forget.
She is the girl in the attic, the woman in the desert, the warrior standing before kings, and the mother clutching her babies as they are ripped from her arms. She is the reason we are still here. For thousands of years, through exile and destruction, through pogroms and gas chambers, through war and terror, one truth has remained unshaken. Every time the Jewish people survive, it is because of the Jewish woman.
October 7th was the day the world stopped listening. We watched Jewish history repeat itself in real time. Broadcast on GoPro cameras for the world to see—still, they denied it. We saw mothers shielding their children, grandmothers taken hostage, and daughters dragged into Gaza. We heard screaming, crying—then the silence of the world. We watched as people debated our pain, as crowds marched, not for the women who were stolen, but for those who took them. We saw our sisters, our mothers, our daughters held captive underground. When we begged the world to look, they told us to be quiet.
But Jewish women have never been quiet. We have never been the ones who sit back and wait to be saved. We carry our people. We fight, even when we should not have to. We suffer first, but we are also the first to rise. This is not poetry. This is history.
From the beginning, it has always been this way. For thousands of years, Jewish women have carried our people forward. They have fought for our survival—not with weapons, but with their bodies, their voices, and their unshakable faith. They have given life when the world tried to take it. They have preserved history when others tried to erase it. They have stood in the face of destruction and refused to bow.
She is Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, the women who built a people. She is Miriam, standing at the water’s edge, ensuring that Moses would live to lead. She is Esther, standing before a king and defying an empire. She is Golda, leading a nation through war, standing in a room full of men who doubted her, refusing to be ignored. She is Anne, writing her story so the world could never say it didn’t know. She is Hadas Kalderon, a grieving daughter who fought relentlessly to bring her children and then their father home. She is Noa Argamani, rescued in a miracle, only to return to a mother she could no longer save. She is Rachel Goldberg-Polin, who refused to stop speaking her son’s name until they had no choice but to listen. She is Shiri Bibas, holding her babies, never letting go.
She is every Jewish mother, every Jewish daughter, every Jewish woman who has carried this people forward, who has stood in the face of destruction and said, “Not this time. Not on my watch.”
For 504 days, we waited for a miracle. For 503 days, Ariel and Kfir waited for one, too. For 504 days, we clung to the hope that Shiri was still holding her children. For 503 days, we told ourselves that Ariel and Kfir were still in their mother’s arms, still alive, still waiting to come home. For 504 days, the world was silent. There was no miracle. There was no homecoming. There was only the unbearable truth. Shiri Bibas, her son Ariel, and her baby Kfir were murdered.
Not shot, not bombed, not lost in crossfire. They were murdered with bare hands. No war. No politics. No excuses. Just hatred so deep it could crush the breath from an infant. The world may have already moved on, but we will not.
Every Jewish mother is Shiri Bibas. Every Jewish mother who tucks her child in at night is holding them as tightly as she did. Every Jewish mother who watches their children walk out the door feels the terror she must have felt. Every Jewish mother who lights the Shabbat candles knows that the world has always tried to snuff us out. Every Jewish mother is still waiting for hostages to come home, knowing that far too many never will. Every Jewish mother will not let the world forget.
No one has ever been able to keep a Jewish woman quiet. The world has never truly understood the Jewish woman. They have seen glimpses—Sarah in the desert, Esther before the king, Anne in the attic, Golda at the helm of a nation, Rachel crying for Hersh, Shiri protecting her babies. But they do not know us. Because if they did, they would not ask us to move on. If they did, they would not expect us to bow our heads in grief and go silent.
If they did, they would understand that we have never broken before, and we will not break now. We rise from the ashes of pogroms, from the ruins of ghettos, from the voices of those who could not rise themselves. We rise from the Holocaust, from exile, from October 7th, from every attempt to erase us. We rise from grief, from fear, from history itself. We rise because we have no other choice. Because if we do not rise, who will?
Every Friday night, Jewish families rise and sing to the Jewish woman. They call her Eishet Chayil, a woman of valor. But do they truly understand who she is? She is not just the one who nurtures—she is the one who fights. She is not just the one who comforts—she is the one who builds. She is not just the one who remembers—she is the one who ensures the world does not forget.
She is you. And she will never stop. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. The Jewish woman has always been the one who saves us. And she will do it again.
Hillary Goldberg is a Councilwoman in Teaneck, NJ, a writer, and a leading Jewish advocate in New Jersey. Her writing has been featured in The Jerusalem Post, The Jewish Standard, The Times of Israel, and The Jewish Link. Passionate about the Jewish life experience, she engages in meaningful conversations on resilience, history, and the relevance of Jewish wisdom in today’s world.
