By Marshall Weiss, The Observer
Boston-based attorney Doug Hauer says he and his spouse of 30 years, Jack, were “100-percent destroyed” when Jack’s family in Israel called them at 4 in the morning, Oct. 7, 2023.

“His entire family is in Israel,” says Doug, who was born and raised in Dayton. “And we lived in Israel at different points. We had a home in Israel and we’re very tied to Israel. I also happen to be Israeli. I’m American Israeli.”

Hamas terrorists from Gaza had infiltrated Israel, murdered more than 1,200 people there, and took 254 people hostage through its vast network of underground tunnels.

Israel estimates 97 of those abducted — living and dead — remain in captivity.

“I was pulled in by multiple forces in Israel to assist families with legal issues they were facing in the United States, specifically families of hostages or people presumed to have been taken on Oct. 7,” Doug says.

The corporate, government affairs, and crisis management lawyer led the project to bring a Gaza tunnel simulation exhibit to Washington, D.C.’s National Mall, first from March 16 to 21, and most recently, Nov. 10 to 13. By coincidence, the exhibit coincided with the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly, also in Washington, Nov. 10 to 12.

The Hamas tunnel simulation in a repurposed shipping container is a duplicate of one that hostages’ families had set up in front of the United Nations Office in Geneva in February.

Doug played an integral role with that project, too. “I led a hunger strike for 36 hours in Geneva with a group of rabbis — liberal rabbis — who came from Israel and the United States. And we were there with the families of the women hostages.”

He says families of the hostages who were released in November 2023 weighed in on creative aspects of the tunnel simulation.

“This exhibit gives you a glimpse for 30 seconds or so of what hostages may experience. It is jarring to be in the dark space. The sound is taken from Hamas body cameras that were recovered.

“And I think the message, unfortunately — release the hostages — is still relevant, and people need to know and understand.”

Doug notes that the International Committee of the Red Cross headquarters is located near the U.N.’s Geneva office.

Israel’s government has lambasted the ICRC since October 2023 for its inability to meet with the hostages from Israel and to provide them with medicine. This includes hostages who aren’t Jewish and hostages from other countries.

In September, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned Hamas for not allowing the ICRC to visit the hostages in Gaza.

“The International Red Cross visited every single American hostage in Iran,” Doug says. “By April 1980, there was an effort made by the Red Cross to bend their own rules to meet the demands of the Iranian students to visit and speak physically in person with each hostage.”

He’s spoken with Israeli hostages’ parents who have taken medication to Geneva to deliver to the ICRC for their children.

“They have been ignored. To say that they’re sick with worry is an understatement. It’s been a shattering experience for Israelis and for these families.”

From Geneva, the tunnel simulation was exhibited across Europe: in Budapest, Bucharest, Paris, in front of the European Parliament in Brussels, and in several locations across Germany.

Doug knew he wanted to duplicate the exhibit in the United States. He worked with a group of Israelis from Maryland to make it happen.

It was also on display Aug. 18 to 20 at Boston’s City Hall Plaza. “There was tremendous pressure on me by the police in Boston and the city to take the exhibit and put it in a Jewish space. I refused to allow this exhibit to go to a synagogue parking lot or to the JCC or Combined Jewish Philanthropies. We spent four months on the permitting.”

The cost for around-the-clock security for the exhibit in Boston was about $50,000.

“We had city officials, state officials, leaders from industry, universities go through. And the most common response to us was, I didn’t realize how terrible the situation really is.”

The tunnel simulation was also on display at the Israeli Embassy in Washington this Oct. 7, the one-year anniversary of the Hamas massacre. “We took Pentagon and military as well as diplomatic staff through the exhibit,” Doug says.

Israelis Ruby and Hagit Chen visited the tunnel simulation at the National Mall on Nov. 11. Hamas abducted their 19-year-old son, Itay, on Oct. 7, 2023. He was serving in the Israel Defense Forces tanks division.

“He was at a base on the border of Gaza, protecting the civilians, the kibbutz on the border,” Ruby tells The Observer. “We listened to the black box of that tank, and they went into battle and they saved many, many, many lives of the Jewish people. And at the end, they were basically outnumbered. And we’ve been living in this hell for over 400 days.”

In March, the IDF and CIA told Ruby and Hagit that Hamas had killed Itay — a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen — on Oct. 7, 2023 and holds his body in Gaza.

“But we actually question that,” Ruby says. “And nobody knows for sure what his status is, or the others. And he’s one of the seven U.S. citizens.”

An international businessman who is frequently in the United States, Ruby heads the U.S. bureau of the Nongovernmental organization he and other parents of hostages established to advocate on their children’s behalf.

Along with a legal team, the NGO has a psychological support team.

Hagit says that for the hostages’ family members, no coping mechanisms lessen the agony. “We just do what we have to, to survive,” she says.

The Chens have relationships with the White House, the Senate, the House, media outlets, and Jewish and non-Jewish organizations. “We have always kept this a bipartisan issue,” Ruby says. They met with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Nov. 13 and then gave CNN an interview. The next day, they returned to the White House for their third meeting with President Joe Biden, along with the other families of Americans who are still held hostage.

Ruby says the leading Jewish organizations in the United States don’t advocate for the hostages to the U.S. government as much as he believes they should, “but even more so to the Israeli government, and explain to the Israeli government that this is a top priority for the U.S. Jewish community.”

“I would hope your community would also be able to advocate that — even inside of the AIPACs and the JFNAs — as well as those that have relationships with the Israeli government, saying that is unacceptable: 400 days Jewish brothers and sisters are being held against their will in dungeons in Gaza.”

Ruby doesn’t think most people in the United States know that Hamas murdered 46 U.S. citizens on Oct. 7, 2023.

Doug Hauer says hostage fatigue has set in with the major Jewish organizations here.

“The biggest problem I see is that Jewish leadership needs to take risks and centralize this issue, even if it makes people uncomfortable, even if it makes the Israeli government uncomfortable, even it if makes certain organizations or political leaders uncomfortable.”

He says he’ll leave the law next year to become a Reform rabbi at Hebrew Union College in New York. “Oct. 7 certainly shaped a lot of my thinking because the anti-Zionism and the antisemitism that we’ve seen has been nothing short of shocking to me.”

To read the complete December 2024 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.