When I told Alaa, before the January 2025 ceasefire, that there would be an Israeli Jew named Noy whose brother was killed by Hamas on October 7 attending her Instagram Live fundraiser, I wasn’t surprised by her response. She couldn’t comprehend that Noy was pro-Palestinain and anti-Zionist.
“I’m scared,” she said. “Are they a fanatic? I am a peaceful person who doesn’t have political problems.”
Such is the dilemma of a Gaza refugee. They are not inert objects that are victims of random bombings. They are people caught in a whirlwind of a socio-political milieu of Zionists vs Palestinians. Even Alaa won’t give out the numbered zone she stays in, for fear of being targeted by Israel via quadcopter, missile, or ground troops. Nor do they want problems with Hamas, the traders, moneychangers, or the mafia that control the economy. One false move and they might lose a food package, a new tarp, or their lives. No collaboration or normalization is allowed. The only thing worse than challenging the established order is to be seen as fraternizing with the enemy. A friend of mine reminded me of a couple who had been murdered in the West Bank for doing so. So, I kept it all on the down low, and only Alaa, the Israeli (Noy) and I knew.
Alaa had already endured enough. Whether through the deaths of her husband, brother, or elder relatives, or the sickness of her children, and lack of food, clothing, or medicine, she had little left. Just the will to live, whatever charity the Israelis allowed to come through and what she could buy on the black market with the donations sent to her GoFundMe. I could feel every wince she made on video chat when the bombs were exploding all around her.
Noy is cool, calm, and collected regarding their brother’s death. Other families grieved for days, months and some now for over a year and may do so for the rest of their lives, but Noy’s family had a different approach to grief. They were modern Orthodox Jews with a devotion to custom and religious law like any other pious people. Faithful to the end, even when Noy’s brother Hayim was murdered by Hamas, they did not bend. Though Noy is a transgendered MA student, their mother Hannah, a religious feminist, and Hayim, a radical in thought as well as deed, they would not stop living the truth they thought. Everyone who knew Hayim suffered as if they knew Him. Still, pieces of their hearts that could not bear witness to the pain lay strewn about their politics.
Noy had no problem meeting a Gaza refugee. They were not afraid of the obvious tension that might arise. They had relocated to Germany for a student exchange program just before October 7. Now, they were caught between academics and family trauma. The life and death struggle of their people and their education.
Together Alaa and Noy endured the most feared thing their respective cultures could imagine—erasure from the Land. Each morning brought another sunrise and hints of genocide, whether real or exaggerated. Noy, looking on from the luxury of a German University. Alaa, from a world of mud, and rain. Noy, childless in that modern Western depopulation kind of way. Alaa, with two small children needing hospital visits and medicine. Noy, middle-class. Alaa, living like an undocumented worker in her own country.
Yet both families prayed daily. Alaa’s, the five compulsory devotions that Islam demanded of her: There is no God, but God, and Mohammad is His prophet…; and Noy’s, the twice daily Shema: “The Lord is God…the Lord is One. Love Him with all your Heart…Love Him with all your Soul…” Both declarations of their respective faiths. Both descended from Abraham’s piety millennia ago.
An acquaintance of mine, Robert Sarazin Blake, had written a song about Noy’s declaration of peace following their brother’s death. “Don’t use our death and pain to bring death and pain to families anywhere,” read the lyric Robert heard in Noy’s CNN news appearance that had gone viral on social media. A short plea for sanity after October 7th, before the people of Gaza started getting bombed to death.
Noy’s life lay halfway to the other side of the known Universe. Three different worlds: Europe, America and Palestine. Noy was watching the death and destruction of their people from Germany, the same place their grandparents fled from inorder to avoid the Holocaust. My life was one of a typical American: war somewhere else, genocide a news story online. No bombing or starvation threatened me. Noy’s family mourned under the wail of air-raid sirens. Alaa’s remaining family lay scattered among the refugee camps.
Noy agreed to join one of Alaa’s fundraisers on Instagram. An interview gave me the background I needed. Brother Hayim, a former Israeli soldier who saw the light and graduated to the rank of pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist activist. He loved to play music. Had a band consisting of Jews that only played songs in Arabic, the language of Palestinian Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. Hayim lived what the life of a Kibbutz was supposed to be: caring for neighbors and strengthening Israeli belonging and identity through community building. Hamas didn’t understand that many of the people they murdered cared for them. Noy wondered: “Maybe they did know and that’s why they killed them—to kill the hope for peace?” These Israelis wanted peace and had no fear of Palestinians. The innocent on both sides suffer the most during wartime.
One thin strip of land on the Mediterranean versus another; one religious identity versus another. Mohammad ascended to Heaven atop the ruins of the Jewish Second Temple and its Holy of Holies. Now add Christians, Samaritans, Druze, Sunni, Shia…etc. Only the languages have been simplified to two: Arabic and Hebrew.
The fundraiser barely started before falling apart. Alaa couldn’t charge her phone. The tightening restrictions on humanitarian aid led to a collapse in places to charge digital devices. We got six minutes and then all went black. I ended up interviewing Noy on Instagram Live, but no one joined us for more than a minute or two. In the end, it didn’t matter. Alaa won’t talk about politics anyway and that’s okay.
So all I have is Noy’s story. You can read Alaa’s here.
And, as luck would have it, Hamas and Israel reached a ceasefire in the middle of my writing and we pray, Noy, Alaa, and I, that this time it works, and we won’t have to meet under the same circumstances ever again.