Bring the Brodutch family home
Update: Every time another antisemite writes to me to excuse, justify, or celebrate Hamas’s orgy of murder and kidnapping, I make another donation to the Jewish Federations of North America to help Israeli terror victims, listing the antisemite’s name or alias in the “in honor of” field. By request, I’m sharing the link in case anyone else is also interested to donate.
Aharon Brodutch is a quantum computing researcher who I’ve known for nearly a decade. He’s worked at the Institute for Quantum Computing in Waterloo, the University of Toronto, his own startup company, and most recently IonQ. He’s thought about quantum discord, the one-clean-qubit model, weak measurements, and other topics that have long been of interest on this blog. He’s also on the paper giving an adaptive attack against Wiesner’s quantum money scheme—an application of the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb tester so simple and beautiful that I teach it in my undergrad Intro to Quantum Information Science class.
Yesterday I learned that Aharon’s sister-in-law Hagar, his niece Ofri, and his two nephews Yuval and Uriah were kidnapped by Hamas. Like Jews around the world, I’ve spent the last two weeks endlessly learning the names, faces, and life stories of hundreds of Israeli civilians who were murdered or kidnapped—and yet this news, directly affecting a colleague of mine, still managed to hit me in the gut.
I’m gratified that much of the world shares my revulsion at Hamas’s pogrom—the worst violence against Jews since the Holocaust—and joins me in wishing for the safe return of the 200 hostages as well as the destruction of Hamas, and its replacement by a governing authority that actually cares about the welfare of the Palestinian people. I’m glad that even many who call themselves “anti-Israel” or “anti-Zionist” have the basic human decency to be disgusted by Hamas. Some of the most touching messages of love and support that I got came from my Iranian friends.
All the same, for a whole week, my inbox and my blog moderation queue have been filling up with missives from people who profess to be thrilled, delighted, exhilirated by what Hamas did. They tell me that the young people at the Nova music festival had it coming, and that they hope Hamas burns the settler-colonialist Zionist entity to the ground. While some of these people praise Adolf Hitler, others parrot social-justice slogans. One of these lovely correspondents claimed that virtually all of his academic colleagues in history and social science share his attitudes, and said I had no right to lecture him as a mere computer scientist.
Meanwhile, as quantum computing founder David Deutsch has documented on his Twitter, in cities and university campuses around the world, posters with the names and faces of the children kidnapped by Hamas—just the names and faces of the kidnapped children (!)—are being torn down by anti-Israel activists. The cognitive dissonance involved in such an act is astounding, but also deeply informative about the millennia-old forces at work here.
One way I’ve been coping with this is, every time a Jew-hater emails me, I make another donation to help the victims in Israel, specifying that my donation is being made in the Jew-hater’s name. But another way to cope is simply to use this blog to make what’s at stake visceral and explicit to my readers. I got in touch with Aharon, and he asked me to share the guest post below, written by his brother Avihai. I said it was the least I could do. –Scott Aaronson
Guest Post by Avihai Brodutch
My name is Avihai Brodutch. My wife Hagar, along with our three children Ofri, Yuval, and Uriah, are being held hostage by Hamas. I want to share this message with people around the world: Children should never be involved in war. My wife and family should not be held hostage and they need to be released immediately.
Here’s my story:
I am an Israeli from Kfar Aza. My wife and I chose to build our home close to the border with Gaza, hoping for peace and relying on the Israeli government to protect our children. It was a beautiful home. Hagar, the love of my life, spent her entire life in Kibbutz Gvulot near the border. Our daughter Ofri, who is 10 years old, is an amazing, fun-loving girl who brings joy to everyone around her. Our son Yuval, 8, is smart, kind, and loving. And our youngest, Uriah, is the cutest little rascal. He is four and a half years old. All four of them are in the hands of Hamas, and I hope they are at least together.
On October 7th, our family’s life was shattered by a brutal attack. Hamas terrorists infiltrated Kfar Aza early in the morning while I was away from home. Security alerts are common in the kibbutz, and we all thought this one was no different until Hagar heard a knock on the door and saw the neighbor’s 4-year-old girl, Avigail, covered in blood. Both her parents had been murdered, and Hagar took Avigail in. She locked the door, and they all hid in the house. Soon, the entire kibbutz was filled with the sounds of bullets and bombs.
I maintained contact with Hagar, who informed me that she had secured the door and was hiding with the children. We communicated quietly through text messages until she messaged, “they are coming in.” At that point, we lost communication, and I was convinced that I had lost my wife and three children. I do not want to describe the images that raced through my mind. A day later, I received word that a neighbor had witnessed them being captured and taken to Gaza. My family was alive, and this was the happiest news I’ve ever received. However, I knew they were far from being safe.
I am asking all the governments in the world, do the right thing and help bring my family back to safety. This is not controversial, it is obvious to every human, the first priority should be bringing the families back home.