After 844 days, Israeli soldiers bring Staff Sergeant Ran Gvili home.

I Believe

In 1942, sitting on the train to Treblinka, Cantor Azriel David Fastag, began singing a new rendition of “Ani Maamin” (I Believe), a recitation of the Rabbi Maimonides’ 13 Principles of Faith. The song spread throughout the train. It is believed that numerous Jews, being led to their deaths, as their last act on this earth, proclaimed their faith in God in this manner.

After 844 days, on January 27, 2026, at 5:35 PM local time, the clock in Tel Aviv’s hostage square finally stopped. The last of the taken, Ran Gvili, was finally brought home. As his brothers and sisters in arms took his remains from Gaza, they too proclaimed their faith in God, in this same manner, with haunting melody of Ani Maamin.

“Until the last one comes home;” many say it, fewer mean it, fewer still face the test and see it through.

We thank God that Ran Gvilli, a Staff Seargeant in one of the Israeli National Police Force’s most elite units, is finally being laid to rest by the people and in the land he so loved. May his memory, and all those of the fallen, forever be a blessing.

With Complete Faith

January 27^th is also International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Around the world, many took a moment and remembered. But the truth is, that far more ignored it, or didn’t even know. Do any of us believe they truly commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day in Riyadh or Ramallah?

And when lip service is paid to this day on the digital airwaves, how many of those speaking took responsibility for the hand they’ve had in delivering a different flavor of the same hateful recipe that enabled the horror?

We demand better. Never Again is a promise, not a slogan.  And we understand the wretched guilt and culpability that comes with being a bystander to history.

He Alone is Our God

Case in point. Estimates indicate that more than 30,000 Iranians have been killed by the regime, and as a result, the protests have largely been suppressed. This said, according to many analysts, the regime is at its weakest, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. There is an opportunity here.

Thus far, President Trump appears to be keeping his options open. He has moved the USS Abraham Lincoln Strike Group as well as several other significant assets to and around the region. Interestingly, while engaged in a military buildup and releasing news of a planned military exercise in the area, President Trump has also left the door open for negotiation.

We suspect, the President understands the Mullahs’ intransigence and is trying to ascertain exactly how hard the U.S. must push in order to cause the teetering regime to fall. Push too hard, and you may get far more than bargained for; failure to push hard enough, and millions of people remain under the boot of this abhorrent regime, and an American and Israeli enemy remains empowered.

There is risk here, but the greater risk is in the failure to act as we know that this regime will stop at nothing to kill Americans, Israelis, Christians and Jews. 

At CUFI we have faith in God, not men. We believe that God has shown the clear and moral path through His Word, and that the demise of the Islamic Republic will make this world a better place – a place more worthy of its creator.

Sincerely,

The CUFI Action Fund Team