{"id":227764,"date":"2025-09-15T03:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T03:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/227764\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T03:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T03:42:10","slug":"penn-hillel-welcomes-parents-of-oct-7-2023-hostage-itay-chen-to-speak-at-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/227764\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn Hillel welcomes parents of Oct. 7, 2023 hostage Itay Chen to speak at event"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"09-14-25-hillel-hostage-event-madeline-israel\"\/
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tHagit (left) and Ruby Chen (right), parents of hostage Itay Chen, spoke at an event at Penn Hillel on Sept. 14.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCredit: Madeline Israel<\/a> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Around 150 people gathered at Penn Hillel on Sunday to hear from the parents of Itay Chen, a 19-year-old, United States-Israeli citizen who was taken hostage during Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023 attack near the Gaza border.\n<\/p>\n

The event \u2014 sponsored by Penn Hillel and several campus organizations, including Chabad House and the Penn Israel Public Affairs Committee \u2014 featured Chen\u2019s parents, Hagit and Ruby, who spoke about their son\u2019s capture and their advocacy for the release of hostages. Eitan Holtzman, Penn\u2019s Jewish Agency Israel fellow, opened the program by recounting his personal connection to Chen, who was a friend of his younger brother.\u00a0\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Holtzman also emphasized the importance of supporting the Jewish community. He told attendees that Chen, who served in a tank unit of the Israel Defense Forces, was captured while fighting near Kibbutz Nahal Oz.\n<\/p>\n

Hagit Chen shared stories from her son\u2019s childhood, recalling his love of sports, scouting, and mentoring younger children. She described him as someone who consistently took on responsibility for others.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like he woke up one day on October 7 and said today\u2019s the day for me to be a hero,\u201d Chen said. \u201cHe is a hero. And all his life, he was a hero.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Ruby Chen similarly detailed the family\u2019s ongoing advocacy, which has included meetings with the White House, members of Congress, and international organizations. He said the family helped establish a nonprofit to coordinate efforts among hostage families.\n\t<\/p>\n

He also said that \u201ca new battle\u201d began after the hostages were taken.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to use that adjective ‘battle,’\u201d Chen said. \u201cBecause why in the name of God [did] 255 families need to battle and fight for the return of their loved ones?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that is the fact of the matter,\u201d he added.\n<\/p>\n

Chen also described how U.S. officials worked to maintain bipartisan support for the families\u2019 advocacy.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\tSign up for our newsletter<\/p>\n

Get our newsletter, DP Daybreak, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we understood that President Trump was elected, he urged Jake Sullivan, who was the special envoy to the Middle East, to forget about politics and keep this a bipartisan issue, and to reach out as fast as they could to the counterparts of the new administration and finally get this deal that was on the table to the finish line,\u201d Chen said. \u201cAnd God bless them, they indeed forgot about politics.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Attendees were invited to take purple bracelets bearing Chen\u2019s name as a symbol of solidarity.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Senior Reporter George Chang contributed reporting.<\/p>\n

The Daily Pennsylvanian is an independent, student-run newspaper. Please consider making a donation<\/a> to support the coverage that shapes the University. Your generosity ensures a future of strong journalism at Penn.<\/p>\n

Donate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hagit (left) and Ruby Chen (right), parents of hostage Itay Chen, spoke at an event at Penn Hillel…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":227765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,8432,50,1448,2830,1311,11027,1399,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-227764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-beats","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pa","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-studentlife","15":"tag-top","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115206248605708162","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}