Blessed is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh

Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh is a documentary about a woman of incalculable courage and honor. Senesh, an idealist who hoped to help create a Jewish state in Israel, escaped from Hungary to what was then British-controlled Palestine. Instead of staying where she was safe, she joined a mission to rescue Jews in her home country, the only military rescue mission for Jews during the Holocaust. She parachuted behind enemy lines, was captured, tortured and ultimately executed by a Nazi firing squad. The documentary features those who knew her, including Israeli President Shimon Peres, who knew Senesh as a young pioneer in the 1940s, and two of her fellow parachutists, Reuven Dafni and Surika Braverman, along with renowned historian Sir Martin Gilbert.

Senesh is a national heroine in Israel, where her story and her poetry is well-known. Many synagogues around the world sing a hymn with lyrics from one of her poems:

My God, My God, I pray that these things never end,
The sand and the sea,
The rustle of the waters,
Lightning of the Heavens,
The prayer of Man.

This is the last poem she wrote:

Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.
Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart.
Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor’s sake.
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.