“My husband’s greatest concern when burying his son was that there would be a crisis in faith”

Title: No Prayer Goes Unanswered

Location: Jerusalem, Israel

Document: Jerusalem Post

Time: October 14, 1994

My husband asked that it be stated at Nachshon’s funeral, to please tell all our people that G-d did listen to our prayers and that He collected all our tears. My husband’s greatest concern when burying his son was that there would be a crisis in faith. And so he asked that it be told to everyone that just as a father would always like to say yes to all of his children’s requests, sometimes he had to say no, though the child might not understand why. So our Father in Heaven heard our prayers, and though we don’t understand why, His answer was no.

—Esther Wachsman, mother of Nachshon Wachsman Hy”d

When the Oslo Accords went into effect in the last months of 1994, Palestinian extremists attempted to stop the peace process. Hamas, which actively wanted to prevent any possibility of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, carried out a series of suicide bombings and deadly terror attacks to try to convince the Israeli public of the futility of peace. Hamas terrorists also wanted to free the founder of their organization, Ahmed Yassin, along with hundreds of other terrorists, from Israeli prisons. To that end, they invested great effort into abducting an IDF soldier who could be used as a bargaining chip. Sadly, they found one: Nachshon Wachsman.

Nachshon’s mother Esther was born in a DP camp in Germany in 1947 to survivor parents who had lost their entire families in the Holocaust. Having grown up in Brooklyn, she moved to Israel in 1969 and studied history at Hebrew University, specializing in Holocaust studies. It was there that she met her husband, Yehuda Wachsman, who was born in Romania in 1947 and immigrated to Israel when he was 11.

Settling in Jerusalem’s Ramot neighborhood, they raised a family of seven sons. The first two were appropriately named for ancestors martyred in the Holocaust. The third son was born on Shevii shel Pesach, the anniversary of Kri’as Yam Suf, inspiring hope for a better future. Named for the Biblical Nachshon ben Aminadav, who was the first to jump into the Yam Suf, he attended a yeshivah in Jerusalem before following his older brothers into the elite Golani combat unit of the IDF.

On Friday, October 7, 1994, when Nachshon was 19, he returned home for a week break, but was called back on Motzaei Shabbos for a one-day training maneuver in northern Israel. Promising his parents that he’d return the following night, he headed north, completed his exercise, and started his return trip. He was last seen on Sunday night, October 9, at the Bnei Atarot junction, one of the busiest highway intersections in the center of the country, not far from Ben Gurion Airport.

He was apparently hitchhiking his way back to Jerusalem when a car stopped to offer a ride. The disguised Hamas terrorists wore yarmulkes, had a siddur and Chumash on display on the dashboard, and were playing popular Jewish music loudly from their cassette player. Seeing no reason for concern, Nachshon accepted the proffered ride, and his abductors immediately proceeded to a prearranged hideout in a Palestinian village named Bir Nabala, only a ten-minute drive from his parents’ home in Ramot.

His proximity was initially unknown to the Israeli security establishment, who mistakenly believed he was being held in the Gaza Strip, which was promptly sealed off. Hamas delivered an ultimatum with a video of Nachshon being held hostage. They demanded that a prisoner exchange take place by Friday at 8 p.m., or Nachshon would be shot.

Because Nachshon was a dual citizen of Israel and the United States, an international outcry ensued, spearheaded by his parents. President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin were contacted, and Yehuda and Esther Wachsman appeared in the media, trying to do everything possible to win their son’s release. When Rabin threatened Arafat with a termination of the entire Oslo Accords if he wouldn’t cooperate with locating the terrorists, Arafat complied by arresting Hamas militants and even calling the Wachsman home to assure them that he was doing everything possible to return their son.

In addition to their political, diplomatic, and media efforts, the Wachsmans moved heaven and earth in the spiritual realm as well, uniting Jewish people worldwide to pray for Nachshon’s release.

And we appealed to our brethren — to the Jewish people throughout the world — and asked them to pray for our son. The Chief Rabbi of Israel designated three chapters of Psalms to be said every day, and people everywhere, including schoolchildren who had never prayed before, did so for the sake of one precious Jewish soul. I asked women throughout the world to light an extra Sabbath candle for my son.

From about 30,000 letters that poured into our home, I learned of thousands of women who had never lit Sabbath candles, who did so for the sake of our son — who had become a symbol of everyone’s son, brother, friend. On Thursday night, twenty-four hours before the ultimatum, a prayer vigil was held at the Western Wall and, at the same hour, prayer vigils were held throughout the world in synagogues, schools, community centers, street squares....

At the Western Wall, 50,000 people arrived, with almost no notice — chassidim in black frock coats and long side curls swayed and prayed and cried, side by side with young boys in torn   jeans and ponytails and earrings. There was total unity and solidarity of purpose among us — religious and secular, left wing and right wing, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, old and young, rich and poor — an occurrence unprecedented in our sadly fragmented society.

When Israeli intelligence discovered that Nachshon was being held in a West Bank village under Israeli jurisdiction, a military operation was authorized to free him. Just as the ultimatum ran out on Friday night at 8 p.m., elite IDF commandos stormed the compound. Upon encountering a steel door that needed to be blown up in order to proceed, the element of surprise was lost, and the terrorists shot Nachshon in the throat and chest. Captain Nir Poraz was also killed during the failed rescue mission.

Itzhak Rabin publicly took sole responsibility for the botched rescue attempt, and visited the family during the shivah. He continued to call Nachshon’s parents every Motzaei Shabbos and Erev Yom Tov until his own assassination a year later.

Throngs of mourners attended the funeral on Motzaei Shabbos. The innocent 19-year-old boy had become a symbol of a nation experiencing both hope and tragedy. But his parents taught another lesson that resonates until this very day. Faith, even when the desired outcome remains elusive, brings the Jewish People together. And those multitudes of prayers and Shabbos candles kindled served a cosmic purpose, although the results are beyond human comprehension.

Belated Revenge

The Hamas terrorist who kidnapped Nachshon Waxman, Zacharia Najib, was detained and imprisoned in Israel. In June 2006, Hamas abducted Gilad Shalit, the first Israeli soldier taken alive since Nachshon Waxman. In the prisoner exchange that released Shalit in October 2011, Yehuda Wachsman approved the release of Zacharia Najib to secure Shalit’s release. Najib was finally eliminated in an air strike in the Al-Shifa Hospital area in 2024. The senior Hamas terrorist who masterminded the Nachshon Wachsman kidnapping was Mohammed Deif, and he was also eliminated in an airstrike in Khan Yunis in July 2024.

Nobel (No) Peace Prize

In a cruel twist of irony, on October 14, 1994, the day Nachshon Wachsman was murdered by Hamas terrorists, the Nobel Prize Committee announced that the Nobel Peace Prize — issued in Oslo of all places, and not in Stockholm, where the prizes in the sciences are distributed — would be presented collectively to Itzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Yasser Arafat, for their respective roles in the Oslo Accords.

In the Nobel committee’s statement, they naively declared: “By concluding the Oslo Accords, and subsequently following them up, Arafat, Peres, and Rabin have made substantial contributions to a historic process through which peace and cooperation can replace war and hate.… It is the Committee’s hope that the award will serve as an encouragement to all the Israelis and Palestinians who are endeavoring to establish lasting peace in the region.”

Wishful thinking. A few hours after this announcement, Nachshon Wachsman was murdered in cold blood by Hamas terrorists. Hashem yikom damo.

The 9th of Cheshvan marked the 30th yahrtzeit of Nachshon Wachsman Hy”d.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1037)