“Saving Abigail” Recaps a Year of Advocating for Hostages

Liz Hirsh Naftali’s book, “Saving Abigail: The True Story of the Abduction and Rescue of a Three-Year-Old Hostage” is an intimate and sobering account of one family’s horrific loss and the effort to find any semblance of hope. The book, released 11 months after the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, follows the story of Abigail Mor Edan, who was only three years old when Hamas terrorists stormed her border community in Israel on that terrible Saturday. The attack left over 1,200 dead and 246 abducted.

Naftali is Abigail’s great-aunt. After Abigail’s parents were murdered in front of their children, Abigail was taken hostage by Hamas. Naftali made it her mission to bring her great niece home. “Abigail’s story, our story, is tragic, and it’s one of many tragic stories from Oct. 7, but it’s one that not only had the murder and the kidnapping but also the atrocity of what could happen,” Naftali told The Journal. “And then yes, [Abigail] was released, but she didn’t come ‘home.’ She had no house. Her parents were gone, they were murdered. And yes, she has a beautiful family and her sister and brother and she are going to be okay. They’re good.”

Naftali describes her journey as both a grieving family member and an advocate navigating the highest levels of international diplomacy. “I was so new to all this that I just started taking notes from the beginning,” she said of her writing process. “People said, ‘Take notes, keep a journal,’ and I kept lots of journals … even in meetings, some of the leaders would ask, ‘Why are you writing?’” These detailed records became the foundation for the 200 pages of “Saving Abigail.”

Though she was new to hostage advocacy, as a businesswoman and philanthropist, Naftali is no stranger to taking charge. As evidenced by her guests on The Capitol Coffee Connection podcast (including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), and dozens more incumbent U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives), nudging, grilling and advising government bureaucrats is something Naftali does with ease.

Naftali writes that the mass kidnapping of young children by terrorists was something few people in government — including, as it turned out, senior officials like National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and CIA Director William Burns — had ever dealt with before. Special Presidential Envoy Roger Carstens, who had handled hostage cases for the U.S. State Department since 2020, admitted the situation was unlike anything he had encountered before. Carstens, she writes, “was hardly sanguine about the challenges of bringing Abigail. His office had a wall displaying the pictures of hostages he helped bring home … I also noticed that the gallery of photographs on Carstens’ wall didn’t include any pictures of three-year-old girls or, for that matter, any children at all.”

What made Abigail’s case even more extraordinary was the level of attention it garnered. President Joe Biden received daily updates on the hostages, including Abigail. “Knowing that Abigail’s fate was on the president’s desk every day gave me hope,” Naftali wrote.

Naftali also hopes this can be a book to be read by skeptics of the atrocities committed by Hamas against Jews. “I wanted people to understand, and as we saw stories of people who questioned the attacks even happened that day,” Naftali said. “People can make judgments, they can decide things. But what I put in there is the truth.”

“I wanted people to understand, and as we saw stories of people who questioned the attacks even happened that day … People can make judgments, they can decide things. But what I put in there is the truth.” – Liz Hirsh Naftali

For Naftali, the book was more than a recounting of events—it was a way to process deeply conflicting emotions. “When I did the audio [version], there were moments I cried so much saying it out loud that I had to take a break,” Naftali said. “To this day, when I speak and I talk about it, it’s not just, ‘Oh, I’m saying the story again.’ It’s taking my heart and the hearts of this family and Abigail and having to share it once again.”

“Saving Abigail” is both a tribute to Abigail’s survival and a call to action for anyone who can do what they can to bring home the remaining 101 hostages. The book stays remarkably nonpartisan, but she is not afraid to call out leaders by name. “Until these hostages come home, the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu], Ron Dermer, their whole team, everybody running that country, their legacy is based on Oct. 7, 2023. And I hope for them that they can bring home these hostages so the nation can move forward.”

Still, Naftali looks back at the past year and has a message for American Jews. “I say to American Jewry: I don’t care where you sit in terms of how religious you are or what side of the [political] aisle you are on, it is our obligation to come together to keep the hostages and Israel not a partisan piece, because Israel’s success is based on having Republicans and Democrats. But focus on the hostages’ release, which we have done very carefully, making sure that we have good relationships with both sides and we don’t take a side. But that is really important for the hostages.”

The book ends on September 1, 2024, the day that American Hersh Polin-Goldberg and five other hostages were found murdered in Rafa. It’s a brief epilogue that still feels as raw now as it did that day, nearly three months ago.

Still, Naftali has a vision for an updated epilogue sometime in the near future. “It’s an epilogue where Abigail and her siblings, five children and [caretaker] Hagar and her three children, and all these kids that I’ve met and seen who were either kidnapped or have parents who are still hostages, grandparents that are still hostages, that we fix this,” Naftali said. “We bring a world that will be better for them. And in this epilogue, it isn’t Abigail as an adult doing the work I’m doing for others, but it’s her saying, ‘I helped. I showed what resilience and hope is and that through this.’ And by the way, I hope that this epilogue is written sooner than later because it is really important for our country of America. It is really important for our country of Israel to countries that are allies and strongly, strongly related. It’s really important for that relationship that these hostages come home.

Abigail’s fifth birthday is on Sunday, November 23.

For more about “Saving Abigail” and book talks with Liz Hirsh Naftali, connect on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/savingabigailbook/