Jews Talk Justice: Sharing My Experience in Israel
Last month, I was presented with an incredible opportunity. Hen Mazzig and The Tel Aviv Institute invited me, along with 25 other influencers, content creators, artists, and people with a platform, to participate in a four-day intensive lab called Jews Talk Justice, in Israel!! Now that I have spent some time processing the trip, I want to share my experience with you. So I wrote this blog post and I created a video to share what I witnessed.
Just for some context (and man, how that phrase makes me cringe after the fiasco we saw with Penn, Harvard, MIT, and now Columbia)… The Tel Aviv Institute is a non-profit whose mission is to fight antisemitism in the online space. The institute, along with the lab, were not a reaction to the October 7th massacre, instead it has been around for almost a decade. However, the work they do is needed now more than ever. TLVI provides resources, data, and proven strategies for those who fight hate in the digital space. And as I can attest, and I am sure you witness, there is quite a lot these days.
When you think of those you follow online, or public figures you’ve seen who seem to “get it,” those who can eloquently explain what is happening in this hotbed region, those who have an inclusive tone and are depoliticizing antisemitism and all kinds of hate…they’ve very often had access to TLVI.
This program was not your typical Israel tour of holy sites and riding camels. Most of the participants had visited Israel before. Although, as a side story, I did have the opportunity to visit Jerusalem with one of the non-jewish allies that participated. And seeing the holy city of Jerusalem from their vantage point was truly eye opening.
Old City of Jerusalem
Here’s one quick example. This person is well versed in the history and struggles of the region and advocates for Israel on social media yet, when we were sitting in the Aroma coffee (think Israeli Starbucks) shop at Mamilla Mall which is right outside the old city of Jerusalem, they were shocked to see Arabs in hijabs as well as religious and secular jews all walking by. They were like “wait, I thought the Arabs needed to stay in East Jerusalem or Gaza or the West Bank, I didn’t realize they could freely come and go”.
And this is a person who knows what’s going on. But the propaganda being spread would have even highly intelligent and caring people believe Israel is an “apartheid” state, so they were shocked to see the myriad of Israeli citizens peacefully mingling and shopping together. As a side note, there are 2 million Arab citizens in Israel. They vote, serve in the Knesset, i.e., government (Israel is a parliamentary democracy), serve on the Supreme Court, go to university, and are doctors and lawyers - for more insight, here is an interview from Prager U.
Thankfully, I’ve been to Israel many, many times—I lived there in my early 20s, and all of my children spent gap years there between high school and college. We have been bringing our kids to Israel every year or two since our daughter was three years old. Our goal was to have our kids have a relationship with the people and land of Israel. The same way kids look forward to their favorite ice cream place at Grandma and Grandpa’s house - we wanted them to have that with Israel. Many of you who have followed me for a while have been “along” on my visits to my favorite place in the world. Both the food, fun and fashion trips as well as the running to a bomb shelter trips.
Family trip to Israel, 2011
Family trip to Israel, 2014
While it felt absolutely wonderful to be back, especially after October 7, the visit was also filled with many mixed emotions and even more dichotomy than a usual trip there.
The overall feeling in Israel was tempered. I was there during Purim - kind of like the Jewish Halloween in the sense that you dress in costume, eat sweets, and actually are commanded to get drunk (the adults, not the kids). It’s typically a very joyful holiday. But this year, as with almost every occasion since October 7, a piece of our collective souls is missing. Multiple times a day, there are reminders of the 130+ hostages STILL BEING HELD by terrorists in Gaza. The country is small and the global Jewish population is small (just 15.7 million Jewish people in the world. To put that into perspective, Gigi Hadid has 78.2 million Instagram followers) so what happened on October 7, those murdered on that day and those kidnapped and held hostage are just a few degrees of separation for most Israelis and Jewish people.
The conflicting feelings were palpable during my visit. Jews are a peoplehood that understands resilience and wants to “dance again” as we celebrate life. And yet, the immense trauma that the entire state of Israel, as well as the worldwide Jewish community, is dealing with is carried by many if not most. The list of atrocities is barbaric - murder, rape, being burnt alive, kidnapped from their beds, shot point blank, tortured, and held hostages. That coupled with the hatred, vilification, and dehumanization of Jews everywhere, the calling for our annihilation, the glorification of terror as resistance, and the spreading and acceptance of flat-out lies - I almost can’t continue the list as I get choked up. It is insanity and evil at its finest, and it is terrifying.
I am not being dramatic when I say it feels like we live in an ongoing nightmare. And an upside-down world where evil is embraced and celebrated.
And yet, every single Israeli I spoke to said they still wanted and believed in peace with their Palestinian neighbors. Every. Single. One.
The Israelis I spoke to want a partner in peace, neighbors who want to live alongside them and want BOTH groups to flourish. NOT neighbors calling for eradicating the state of Israel and putting a Palestinian state in its place (as a point of reference - that is precisely what the watermelon emoji and the chant from the river to the sea stand for - the REPLACEMENT of Israel with a Palestinian state free of any Jews).
I could go on and on, but let me get back to the TLVI lab…
It truly took me weeks to process all I saw, learned, and felt on this trip. We learned from amazing, diverse speakers. From META policymakers to IDF insiders to the grandchild of Oct 7 hostages to a research fellow on Antisemitic language in media to a Palestinian Israeli peace activist to a Holocaust survivor. Each was powerful and offered different perspectives. Some were thought-provoking, some confronting, some eye-opening, some validating - yet all were met with respect and a desire to learn more.
What TLVI is doing is priceless and genius - they brought together a diverse group of people with very different platform focuses. Some political, some artistic, some food, some music, some fashion, some business, some religious, some comedy - really, each and every one of us had a different focus, a different audience, and a different perspective. To be honest, I was a little in awe of some of these folks I’ve followed and heard and quoted for a while. Others I’ve seen on the big screen or Broadway. Others I’d felt their influence through their work without knowing until I knew their stories.
It was a bit like the Jewish Avengers, sans the capes and spandex!! Each had its own kind of magic and force, but when combined, they were powerful.
I’m including a list with all of their IG handles because they are a rockstar group and following them will open up your minds and your hearts.
I took away a lot from my week in Israel. My soul was recharged as it always is when I am in my homeland. Most of all, I came away with hope for the future, and a cohort of truth seekers - each with their own special gift but a shared mission to fight propaganda, misinformation, and antisemitism with the truth.
3 things that really stood out as different about this lab and this program:
There was absolutely ZERO quid pro quo - meaning I was not expected to do or post or say anything if I didn’t want to.
As an “influencer,” I often need to fight for that type of autonomy. And I do so every time because your trust in me and my honest authenticity is of utmost importance. So, the fact that this was the foundation of the organization's mission and values was incredibly refreshing and gave me a greater sense of trust and authenticity. The bottom line is that anything I am saying here and on my social channels is what I want to say and are my thoughts - not a regurgitation of someone else’s agenda.
Participants in the lab were YOUNG and fresh, passionate about being Jewish, and deeply loved Israel.
I was a good ten years older than everyone, and I not only learned so much, but it also gave me hope for our future. Unlike the feeling I have when I look at colleges and universities today - the propaganda being spouted fills me with dread, anger, and fear for our democratic values and the morality of our future.
The TLVI cohort was diverse in the best possible way.
Young, old (me!!), queer, straight, Jewish and non-Jewish allies, white, brown, black, reformed, conservative, religious, Jews by choice, Sephardi Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Mizrahi jews, right-leaning, and left-leaning - truly - we were all different and still all the same. And even though we had different viewpoints, we could have civil, heart-led conversations that opened up ideas for all parties.
After the lab ended I traveled with some other participants to bear witness at the Nova Music Festival site (where 400 peaceful music lovers were brutally murdered) and Kibbutz Kfar Aza (one of the communities in the south of Israel, near the Gaza border, that was attacked on Oct 7). I made a video to share what I witnessed.
Hostage Square
Kibbutz Kfar Aza
Nova Festival Containment Site
Nova Peace Music Festival Site
Beautiful soul: Gili Adar, my son’s friend
Nova Peace Music Festival Site
I am extraordinarily grateful to Hen Mazzig for sharing his light. And need to end with one of his quotes: