Emma W. - fighting for Compassion
Trigger warning: This article contains brief references to rape and sexual violence
Crocheting from her couch in her South Tel Aviv apartment, Emma describes her latest venture in activism: those who donate to a fundraiser to support a Palestinian family’s evacuation from Gaza will be entered into her raffle to win handmade crocheted goods.
A tenuous process even before the war, getting out of the Gaza Strip can cost between 5,000 and 10,000 USD per adult and between 2,000 and 5,000 USD per child under 14, she explains. Oftentimes, one relative must already live abroad and the price constantly fluctuates, particularly when you add the additional thousands of dollars needed to grease palms along the way. On top of the immense financial burden, she continues, Egyptian officials “open registration once in a [while] and don't say when they're going to do it again; after you're registered you might not leave for another month or you might leave the next week. It’s not always clear.”
Emma got involved in a group dedicated to sharing online fundraisers to help individuals evacuate from Gaza after a friend of hers recognized the untapped potential of personal social media accounts. Even though larger leftist organizations have already been utilizing their social media followings to promote online fundraisers, people who have connections with their followers offline are far more likely to receive donations.
Soon after showing interest in the project, Emma was connected with a Palestinian family and immediately started sharing the link to their fundraiser with people she had seen posting or talking about Palestine since the outbreak of the war. Not long ago, she received a text in the group thanking all the campaigners for their hard work, with an image of the mother, daughter, and three sons together, finally reunited in Egypt after months of anguish, grief, and uncertainty.
Emma’s interest in activism started early. Growing up in Berkeley, California, her education was heavily influenced by the city’s history as a central hub for many equal rights movements, as exemplified by the Oakland base of the Black Panthers. According to Emma, Berkeley was “one of the best places to grow up; I felt really encouraged to explore, to experiment, and to have respect for other people.” A semi-diverse city, “overall, being Jewish in Berkeley felt very normal,” she explains, then adds that most people in her hometown “don’t like Israel very much.” Criticism of Israel is common within the American political left, particularly given the historic alliance between the civil rights and pro-Palestine movements.
Given her upbringing, building a life in Israel was never a part of Emma’s plan. But she was curious about the country, so despite pushback from friends and family, she went on a Birthright trip in early 2020. She then found herself stuck here after getting into a bicycle accident shortly after the Coronavirus struck. Still unsure about the moral implications of claiming her Israeli citizenship (under the Right of Return, Diaspora Jews are guaranteed Israeli citizenship, while members of the Palestinian diaspora are afforded no such privilege), she put it off as long as she could, first applying for a work permit and then a residency permit before finally making aliyah (the process of Jews becoming Israeli citizens). Much to her surprise, Israel had started to feel like home over those first three years and she realized she wanted to stay.
But not all of Israel. For Emma, Tel Aviv is where she feels the most comfortable. “I could even shorten that to South Tel Aviv feels like home. I don't know that Israel necessarily feels like home. There’s a lack of familiarity with the rest of this country and what non-Tel Avivian people's views are,” she says, drawing a comparison to the uniquely liberal “Berkeley Bubble” of her childhood and the stark difference between political values in Tel Aviv and the rest of Israel.
South Tel Aviv is the most diverse part of the city, home to several different migrant and refugee populations, such as Eritreans, Ukrainians, Ethiopians, as well as many progressive olim (Jewish immigrants to Israel) from all over the world. It’s the city’s liberal character that allows her to feel right at home. For Emma, being a leftist isn’t only about her stance on the conflict or resistance to religious extremism, “there's an environmental aspect as well. [But] right now it's not being so loud because there's a war raging outside.”
Emma’s liberalism, particularly regarding her stance against the war, is emotional, rooted in her feelings about issues, rather than policy. “I’m not an expert on Israeli and Palestinian policy, history, or borders,” she offers as a disclaimer, “but if people are suffering we should stop that. There's this human morality there, but there’s also a Jewish sense of ethics being ignored.”
The disconnect between feeling at home in Tel Aviv but not quite “Israeli” has led Emma to question her legitimacy in voicing critiques of Israeli policy, especially as an active member of the peace camp. She recalls a moment at a recent anti-war and anti-government protest, realizing that “often the radical bloc, or the peace bloc, appears to be pretty heavily olim. Does this mean we’re bringing our Western values into the Middle East? If the majority believes that a war is the answer, does that mean war is the answer?”
She questions her right to make demands on behalf of a people she does not fully identify with, torn between wanting to stand up for her own values and reluctance to overpower the movement. Without a clear answer, she handles this dissonance by taking a step back, following the lead of her Israeli peers, and utilizing her Hebrew as much as possible. “When I’m in these spaces, I don't really want to be vocally an olah (female Jewish immigrant) because I don’t want to take over the group. If I don't understand something, I'll ask.”
When asked if her beliefs have changed at all since October 7, Emma’s sentiments echoed an emotional rollercoaster experienced by many progressive Israelis in recent months. Immediately following the attack and feeling betrayed by the lack of international support, “I had a lot of Zionist feelings, like I would see a Palestinian flag and feel like it was an attack against me,” she starts. “But as the war continued, I shifted a lot and started to see certain patterns [that have made me] less hopeful about Israel and Israelis.” She’s particularly concerned for the nation’s ability to access compassion and empathy in light of the trauma of October 7.
Earlier this year, she joined the grassroots peace organization, Women in White, who stage sit-ins for peace in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Participants dress in white and hold signs with phrases such as “empathy,” “running water,” and “food security,” in Hebrew, English, and Arabic. “I was really struck by the women's sit-in,” she says, explaining why she got involved with the movement. “I thought it was a beautiful display of solidarity and I felt like it was really saying something without anger.”
Describing a sit-in that took place in the same week that evidence of sexual abuse among female hostages in Gaza was made public, Emma recounts being approached by Israeli men shouting “‘you should be raped, you should be raped in Gaza,’ for holding a sign that said ‘compassion’ or ‘running water.’ Not even that Palestinians should have running water,” she says. “Just the overall message that everyone deserves these things.”
She describes another interaction at a different sit-in, where a woman asked one of her fellow protesters what her sign said in English, to which she replied “compassion.” The woman’s immediate response? “Fuck you,” as she walked away.
On top of the degradation of widespread empathy, Emma’s also been disappointed with what she sees as the commodification of the war among the Israeli public, a population so accustomed to violence and terror that inflicting it upon others has lost some of its meaning. Holding onto her beliefs in equality and hope for peace during wartime has led to a growing sense of isolation.
“For a long time I felt a real kinship with Israeli people,” she explains. “I felt comfortable here, I felt like my personality fit in really well with the Israeli mindset. Now there’s a very different feeling. I’m chatting with the guy who comes and fixes my laundry machine, but I know we have vastly different understandings of what Palestinians deserve in terms of rights, citizenship, and livelihoods.”
Despite these experiences and her fear for Israel’s future, Emma’s not angry with those who are unwilling to face the truth of what’s happening in Gaza or find compassion for Palestinians. “I can completely understand why so many Israelis refuse to look at videos of what's going on in Gaza,” she starts. “I recognize my mindset is from a sheltered place, but I feel grateful I'm able to have the ‘let’s have peace view.’”
Emma refuses to allow the atrophy of compassion and growing polarization between the left and right in Israel to get to her. “I have a lot of empathy towards people who want to flatten Gaza; a lot of them have experienced immense loss. Many people who have experienced immense loss are calling for peace, but it’s a totally common trauma response to have lost someone and want to seek revenge.”
Looking to the future, she thinks “it's important for the American left and the Western left to see the Israeli left and see them as a partner.” In sharing images and videos from her activism, she wants “people to know and see that there is a big community against the war [and] there is an Israeli left. It’s small, but it should be involved in the conversation.”
A native of Berkeley, California, Emma has lived in Israel for the last four years (purely by accident). You can find her biking along the coast, crocheting in the park, and perusing pop-ups of every variety, just as long as they’re south of Rothschild Boulevard.
