JANUARY 4 • 2024 | 29
J
N

ERETZ

O

n the first day of 
Chanukah, hours 
before Shabbat, IDF 
spokesperson and Detroit 
native Maj. Doron Spielman 
boarded a Hummer and headed 
for the northern 
Gaza Strip. Just 
before leaving base 
to visit soldiers 
who were clear-
ing territory in 
Jabalya, someone 
handed him a cha-
nukiah and some candles for 
the soldiers. 
Surrounded by soldiers who 
blocked the wind with their 
bodies and stood at the ready 
with their guns, they lit the cha-
nukiah. As they sang the bless-
ings, the group took active fire 
and eliminated terrorists hiding 
in a bombed-out structure from 
300 meters away. Rockets fired 
from Hamas shot overhead and 
headed toward Tel Aviv. 

“
At that point, Chanukah 
took on a whole new meaning 
for me,
” said Spielman, who 
is one of just four English-
speaking media relations pro-
fessionals in the IDF with clear-
ance to speak on camera with 
broadcast news outlets. 
“We have been lighting these 
candles for 2,000 years, and we 
will prevail over this as well. On 
these dark days of war, when I 
need solace, my mind will go 
back to that moment lighting 
those candles in Gaza with 
those soldiers.
” 
After over two months, 
Spielman said wartime Israel 
has fallen into a surreal 
“rhythm,
” a cadence set during 
the early hours of Shabbat 
morning, which marked the 
start of the war. 
In the first days following the 
Oct. 7 massacre, Spielman was 
one of the IDF spokespeople 
who bore immediate witness to 

the destruction of communi-
ties in the Gaza envelope. 
He said during the first 
weeks of the war, he was per-
meated by the smell of death, 
escorting journalists to the 
decimated communities along 
the Gaza envelope. 
“We count the days of the 
war based on Shabbat,
” said 
Spielman, who is shomer 
Shabbat, but nowadays the war 
has forced him to drive and 
work on Saturdays. “Those 
first days and weeks, we were 
on survival mode. Our whole 
rhythm in Israel right now is 
based on the war.
“The first two weeks were 
the hardest weeks of my life,
” 
recalled Spielman, who grew up 
at Adat Shalom Synagogue and 
owes his love of Israel to intern-
ing at the Jewish Federation 
of Detroit and spending 10 
months in Israel shortly after 
graduating from the University 

of Michigan through Project 
OTZMA. “It was so important 
bringing journalists there to 
bear witness, but the smell of 
death stayed with me mentally 
and physically for days.
” 
Instead of going home to 
his wife and six children, ages 
20 to 7, during those days he 
rented an apartment and stayed 
there alone. He could not bear 
to bring that smell back to his 

Metro Detroit native is one of only a few IDF 
spokespeople speaking on broadcast news.

Framing the War for 
a World Audience

continued on page 30

Maj. Doron 
Spielman

spokespeople speaking on broadcast news.

STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Escorting the press 
on the ground

Doron Spielman
on the job in Gaza

Lighting the 
Chanukah candles 
in Gaza