10 | JULY 25 • 2024 
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few days on a Birthright tour, experienc-
ing the highs and lows of what the coun-
try is enduring. 
Along with journalists from the Atlanta 
Jewish Times, the Jewish Journal of Los 
Angeles, I toured the areas hardest hit by 
Hamas. We witnessed how Israeli and dias-
pora Jews are coming together to forge rela-
tionships and work to slowly heal the coun-
try, confront antisemitism and console one 
another through strength and resilience. 
We learned the obvious: Israelis are fight-
ing an existential war along their borders. 
They are also struggling to maintain some 
normalcy in their family and work life, 
which for nine months has been disrupted 
by rockets and repeated calls to reserve 
duty. No one in Israel has escaped loss. All 
the while, we are all fighting antisemitism 
and anti-Israelism on the global stage of 
public opinion. 
Through touring and volunteering, 
Jewish college students in Israel this sum-
mer learned they are not alone. They 
learned that their heritage, history, and con-
nection to the land and the people of Israel 
will give them strength as they head back to 
campus in the fall or go out into the world. 

VISITING THE GAZA ENVELOPE
The first of two days on tour, journalists 
joined the Birthright groups and a 
busload of 40 donors on a tour of the 
Gaza envelope. 
Within two hours of our hotel in Yafo, 
we arrived at Kibbutz Be’
eri. Just 5 kilome-
ters from the Gaza border, this beautiful 
place brimming with green fields and 
flower-lined walkways was one of the com-

munities most severely hit by the massacres. 
Hamas and their conspirators killed over 
100 here on Oct. 7. At press time, 30 remain 
as hostages. Eleven hostages were freed, 
four may still be alive, and the bodies of 
seven remain in Gaza. 
Eight months on, some kibbutz members 
have returned to rebuild and reclaim their 
lives there. In addition to our bus, a few cars 
stopped by the security gate and entered 
the area. Workers in the communal dining 
hall were preparing lunch. Occasionally, jets 
could be heard in the distance and a few 
military drones flew overhead. 
Our guide was Rami Gold, 54, who has 
lived on the kibbutz with his family for 35 
years. In better times, he runs a mountain 
bike trail building business. 
Hamas killed many of Gold’s friends. 
They also killed his sister-in-law, a member 
of a peace group of Palestinian and Israeli 
women who developed a cooperative rela-
tionship over the years. Gold said women 
on the kibbutz would give money on a 
monthly basis to Gazans who did not qual-
ify for aid from the United Nations. It was 
these same women who were taken outside 
their homes and murdered, Gold said. 
Gold showed us the location where he 
and his wife witnessed Hamas and their 
enablers breaking through the fence with 
a bulldozer as they took an early morning 
stroll. He told his wife to hide in a shelter 
and then radioed the kibbutz SWAT team 
to come in a golf cart with weapons and 
medical supplies. There, he fought off 
the terrorists for 12 hours before the IDF 
arrived. 
Gold wanted to make an important point 

that for many years, many members of the 
kibbutz were friends and helpers of the peo-
ple of Gaza. 
“We have an expression in Hebrew which 
I told my friends in Gaza,
” Gold explained. 
“If you come to my family and home to me 
in peace, my home is open to you as a field 
and a prairie. But if you are coming to the 
fence to harm us, I will be the first on the 
fence to stop you. And, unfortunately, that’s 
what happened. The looters and mem-
bers of Hamas were all people from Gaza. 
Somebody raised them and taught them to 
do this. There are no innocent people on 
the other side. And they will never accept 
our being here in Israel.
”
Yet, Gold remains hopeful as he works to 
rebuild his community. He said it will take 
time for members to recover and rebuild 
not only their homes but the trust that 
the Israeli government will protect them. 
Ninety of the kibbutzniks had returned to 
live on the kibbutz after six months. “Our 
community is too important to us. We will 
rebuild and come back.
” 

MAKING AN IMPACT ON STUDENTS
Detroit native and Birthright donor Brina 
Weinstein said it is important to give as 
many Jewish college students as possible the 
opportunity to visit and witness Israel for 
themselves. Weinstein said the trip had a 
profound positive impact on her grandson. 
“For many students today, even if 
their parents are Zionists, they may not 
understand the importance for Israel 
themselves until the come here,” Weinstein 
said as we walked among the destruction. 
“They come to Israel, and they go back to 

continued from page 9

OUR COMMUNITY
ON THE COVER

The new section of 
Har Hertzl, created 
after Oct. 7.

Women soldiers
at Har Hertzl

STACY GITTLEMAN

