ראש ממשלת ישראל בנימין נתניהו ונשיא ארצות הברית דונלד טראמפ פתחו במלחמה נגד איראן, הנחשבת למסוכנת ביותר. לשני המנהיגים הללו לא הייתה תוכנית מסודרת לגבי המלחמה באיראן, והם כנראה לא חשבו מספיק על התוצאות ההרסניות שלה. הן מבחינת כמות הנפגעים הגדולה, הנזק לרכוש והנזק לכלכלה העולמית. ולא פחות הגרימה ללחץ נפשי גדול מאוד לאזרחי ישראל שצריכים כל העת לחפש מקלטים ומקומות להגן על עצמם, מפני הטילים מאיראן ושל החיזבאללה מלבנון – שהגיעו בכמויות עצומות. הקלישאה אומרת כי ידוע איך מלחמה מתחילה אך לא ידוע כיצד היא תסתיים. זה נכון מאוד לגבי המלחמה הנוכחית
המלחמה עם איראן משרתת בין היתר את הקברניטים שפתחו בה נתניהו טראמפ. נתניהו מחפש לבסס את עצמו כמנהיג ביטחוני ממעלה ראשונה שהרחיק את הסיכון האיראני, תוך שהוא מנצל את העליה בפופולריות שלו בישראל, לקראת הבחירות שאמורות להיערך בתוך מספר חודשים. יש שחושבים שהוא מסוגל להמשיך במלחמה עד הבחירות, או ליצור מלחמה אחרת, כדי לדחות אותן. ואילו טראמפ מבקש להשכיח מהציבור האמריקני את פרשת תיקי אפשטיין שכוללת מידע חדש גם עליו. במקביל הוא מבקש להציג את עצמו בתור הנשיא האמריקאי היחידי שביטל את הסכנה האיראנית. ובכך בעצם הוא בוגד בבוחריו הרבים שקיוו שהוא יעסוק בפתרון בעייות הפנים של ארה”ב והכלכלה בראשה, ולא בפתיחת מלחמות חדשות שעולות מיליארדי דולרים
בתקופת הנשיא ברק אובמה נחתם הסכם הגרעין בין מדינות המערב לאיראן שמנע ממנה להתקדם בפרויקט. הסכם זה כלל פיקוח הדוק על מה שאיראן עשתה בנושא הגרעין, אך טראמפ בקדנציה הראשונה שלו, שמע בעצת נתניהו וביטל את ההסכם. מרבית גורמי הביטחון בישראל טענו שזו הייתה טעות קשה לבטל את הסכם הגרעין עם איראן, אך זה לא הטריד ממש את שני מנהיגים אלה, שלאור כך, מנהלים עכשיו מלחמה קשה מול איראן. הפופולריות של נתניהו וטראמפ בעולם ממשיכה לרדת פלאים. נתניהו עדיין נחשב פופולרי יחסית בישראל, בקרב למעלה משלושים אחוז מהאוכלוסיה, אך מצבו של טראמפ בסקרים בארה”ב הולך ומחמיר. טראמפ שחושש שהמפלגה הרפובליקנית תאבד את הרוב שלה בסנאט ובקונגרס, ינסה בכל דרך לפגוע בתקינות בחירות האמצע של ארה”ב, שגם הן אמורות להיערך עד סוף השנה
כך או כך לאזרחים בארץ פשוט נמאס מהמלחמה הנוכחית כאשר כל העת עפים על המדינה עשרות טילים מאיראן ומלבנון. לא זכורה תקופה כזו בישראל מעולם. כבר כשנתיים וחצי שמתנהלת מלחמה בישראל, שהחלה לאחר הטבח של השבעה באוקטובר. מתי יהיה כבר הסוף לכך ונוכל לחזור למסגרת חיים נורמלית שואלים רבים בארץ. התקופה הקשה והבלתי נתפסת הזו גרמה לישראלים לא מעטים לעזוב את המדינה. גם האנטישמיות הגואה בעולם לא מרתיעה אותם
לפי נתוני מדינת ישראל לפני כשנתיים למעלה משמונים אלף ישראלים עזבו לחו”ל, ואילו אשתקד כשבעים אלף ישראלים עזבו לחו”ל. במקביל יש פיחות משמעותי במספר הישראלים החוזרים לגור במדינה. כצפוי הסיבות העיקריות לגידול המשמעותי בירידה הן המצב הבטחוני ולאחר מכן חוסר היציבות הפוליטית ובעיקר המהפכה המשפטית. גם לחוסר יציבות בכלכלה הישראלית יש משקל בהחלטה של הישראלים לעזוב. יצויין שחלק מהעוזבים הם עולים חדשים שהגיעו לישראל בשנים האחרונות ועזבו לאחר זמן קצר. במונחים כספיים מדובר בנזק של כמיליארד שקל בשנה לישראל
לא ברור מתי ישראל תחזור לתקופה שלפני המלחמה האחרונה והשקט יחזור על כנו. יתכן ומנהיגים חדשים בישראל ובארה”ב יעזרו בקידום היציבות באזור
BC students at the StandWithUs conference in Las Vegas March 15-18 included, left to right, Adar Latak, Alexis Moscovitz and Ethan Doctor. (photo by Pat Johnson)
What happens in Las Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. That was the defiant message from Roz Rothstein, the chief executive officer and co-founder of StandWithUs, as she welcomed about 1,000 Jewish and pro-Israel high school and college students, alumni, activists and assorted allies to the organization’s conference in the Nevada city, March 15 to 18. They assembled to become more informed and empowered, to return to their campuses and communities to advance the fight against antisemitism and antizionism.
Among the delegates were about 100 Canadians, including 15 BC students, as well as Vancouverite Zara Nybo, StandWithUs Canada’s campus and high school manager for Western Canada.
StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy and education organization, provides leadership training and educational programs to students at hundreds of schools, as well as operating many other initiatives, including legal supports for Jewish and pro-Israel individuals and groups.
Among the BC students were four Leventhal high school interns and 10 Emerson fellows, who are part of the organization’s college and university track, Nybo said.
Students are selected based on demonstrated leadership in pro-Israel activism. They attend two immersive educational international conferences like the Vegas meeting during their year of service and are required to initiate several Israel-related programs in their communities or on campus.
Delegates heard from a roster of noted speakers in plenary sessions and more intimate, often hands-on breakout sessions.
The intensive morning to late-night schedule included speakers like New York Times columnist Bret Stephens; singer, dancer and online influencer Montana Tucker; sociologist David Hirsh, who is head of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism; Loay Alshareef, a Saudi-born activist who advocates for normalization with Israel; Luai Ahmed, a Yemeni-Swedish journalist; Oct. 7 survivors, including Omer Shem Tov, who was held hostage for 505 days; and scores of others.
New York Times columnist Bret Stephens (photo by Pat Johnson)
Stephens, the New York Times columnist, spoke of the revolutionary impact the potential fall of the Iranian regime could have on regional and global affairs but also warned of unintended consequences.
“Regime change is not at all easy,” he said. “There are all kinds of imponderables.”
The state could spiral into chaos and even more bloody and brutal repression than the government has already brought down on anti-regime protesters, he said.
“I do think there is, in fact, quite a plausible scenario [of regime change] – not now, not during this war, but in six months or a year – if [it’s] a militarily crippled and humiliated regime that is still under sanctions, still cannot pay its bills, cannot pay its civil servants, cannot pay its soldiers,” said Stephens.
Iranian street activists, he said, need to “kick this regime when it’s down.”
“If anyone can do it, 90 million Iranians, 88% of whom, at least, despise the regime and had the courage to come out and cheer when the late ayatollah was killed … I think that that creates conditions in which I can see it happen,” he said.
Ahmed spoke of his ideological and physical journey from being an antisemitic young man in Yemen to a new life in Sweden advancing coexistence with Jews.
“It is our duty as reformist Arab Muslims to stand with our Israeli and Iranian brothers and sisters to reject radical Islam, to fight radical Islam,” he said. “It is our duty to fight the terrorists who occupied my country, who believe that firing ballistic missiles at Jews is more important than feeding the starving population of Yemen.
“Radical Islam occupied Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza,” he said. “Radical Islam married my mother off at the age of 8. Radical Islam is our problem and, today, I stand here as a Yemeni who was taught to hate Jews. And I’m telling you something that radical Islamists fear the most: Jews and Israel are not our enemies.”
Alshareef shared a similar transformation.
“I used to be hardcore antizionist,” he said. “I used to be deeply antisemitic. In my local mosque, I repeated after my imams, ‘Death to Israel, death to Jews, death to Zionists,’ without ever having met a Jew or a Zionist before. Today, thank God, I no longer believe in that cancerous ideology that not only impacts the Jewish community, but it also impacts my community as well.… A society that learns to hate Jews more than loving our own children is not a healthy society.”
Loay Alshareef, a Saudi-born activist who advocates for normalization with Israel. (photo by Pat Johnson)
After Oct. 7, 2023, Alshareef decided to visit Israel.
“I learned that the Jewish community and Israelis were desperate for peace, that the vast majority of Jews and Israelis do not want war with us,” he said. “They want peace, and they are very desperate for this peace. That is something that no one had ever told me until I went to Israel myself to see the truth. I then took it upon myself to try to hammer this newfound truth to my friends and family members. And, since then, I’ve been creating content, sharing the hidden truths about Israelis and Jews that my society either dismisses or is completely unaware of.”
Students shared their experiences with antisemitism and bias from teachers, administrators and fellow students. A high school student explained how he helped get an ahistoric and antisemitic handout removed from his school’s curriculum – it had gone unchallenged since 1998. In plenaries and breakouts, individuals shared personal experiences of harassment, discrimination and loss of friendships.
StandWithUs does not only educate but also uses the law to seek fair outcomes in cases of discrimination.
The conference heard from Yael Lerman, founding director of Saidoff Law, a legal arm of StandWithUs, which includes a team of attorneys backed by a network of hundreds of pro bono lawyers and law firms.
“Imagine being a Jewish student in a high school where there are very few other Jewish kids,” Lerman said. “Day after day, classmates taunt you. They call you ‘dirty Jew’ and ‘Zio,’ they send antisemitic messages. Sometimes, they shove you or punch you. You never know when the next message or the next attack is coming. The school knows about it. Nothing changes. Then you reach out to StandWithUs Saidoff Law. Our attorneys step in. We represent you, we fight for you, and we win. We secure a transfer to a new school, and the original school must pay for it for the rest of your time in high school.”
No student should ever face antisemitism alone, Lerman said.
“Since Oct. 7, we’ve seen a dramatic rise in legal complaints, not only on campuses, but across everyday community spaces,” she continued.
“Recently, one man went to pick up a clothing order at a store where he had been a loyal customer for several years. The clerk looked at his kippa and muttered, ‘You Jews think you can get everything you want.’
“Later that day, he received an email telling him he was banned from the store and the entire chain. So, he reported the incident to StandWithUs. Our lawyer filed a complaint with the appropriate government agency and negotiated a settlement. The store had to lift the ban and compensate him. That is what accountability looks like,” said Lerman.
The conference heard diverse emotional testimonies.
Shem Tov shared the harrowing story of dancing at the Nova festival and, minutes later, being thrown in the back of a pickup truck and transported across the border into Gaza, beginning a nightmarish ordeal of 505 days of being shuttled between locations and then confined in underground labyrinths. For 50 consecutive days, at one point, he was held in complete darkness in a cell where he could not stand up.
“They used to abuse me physically and mentally,” he said of his captors. “There wasn’t any human interaction, I would say.”
Shem Tov was held in near-starvation even as he saw piled boxes of United Nations-supplied rations.
His captors once took him to a house above a tunnel that had been rigged with explosives and told him he would be forced to trigger an explosive blast when Israeli soldiers entered the boobytrapped structure. When they threatened to kill him if he refused, Shem Tov told them they could shoot him, but he would not do it.
After Shem Tov’s presentation, hundreds of students rushed to the front of the hall, surrounding the former hostage and dancing ecstatically as music blared and massive screens declared: “We are dancing again.”
The executive director of StandWithUs Australia, Michael Gencher, led a memorial for the 15 victims murdered during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach last Dec. 14.
Sami Steigmann, a child survivor of the Holocaust, spoke of the series of flukes and strokes of luck that saved his life.
In addition to Canada and all regions of the United States, student delegations came from Europe, Latin America and Australia. Due to war-related airspace closures, only two delegates were able to travel from Israel for the event.
BC delegates spoke to the Independent about their experiences.
Adar Latak, a University of Victoria psychology student in his final year, said he gained confidence at the conference and made important connections.
“You’re meeting Jews from around the world, and that’s beautiful,” he said. “It’s easy to get brought down by everything, and coming here really lifts your spirits. You’re with other Jews, you’re all facing the same thing, and you’re all talking about it, and you’re giving each other advice and tips, and it is really just a beautiful thing.”
Alexis Moscovitz, a second-year physical and health education student, also at the University of Victoria, echoed Latak’s sense of community.
“Obviously, everybody has different experiences, but it’s all basically the same,” she said. “We’re all fighting antisemitism on our campuses and so, having a support system, amazing staff here, it’s just amazing to be able to be with people that you know are experiencing the same things.”
Vancouverite Ethan Doctor, a Langara College student, has faced threats on campus, including being followed and intimidated by a group of masked and keffiyeh-clad activists. His experience as an Emerson Fellow helped him navigate the college bureaucracy, seeking appropriate security and prevention steps.
“If it wasn’t for organizations like StandWithUs, I wouldn’t know how to properly deal with it and wouldn’t know the proper steps to take,” said Doctor. “I am just eternally grateful to organizations like this.”
Michael Dickson, executive director of StandWithUs Israel, left, speaks with Omer Shem Tov, who was held hostage in Gaza for 505 days. (photo by Pat Johnson)
Jesse Primerano, executive director of StandWithUs Canada, told the Independent his group’s role is to help young pro-Israel activists, but also people of all ages, find their voices.
“In many cases, they don’t feel comfortable with the facts, to engage with people who are coming at them very aggressively,” he said. “So, our job is to help them understand the facts and how to communicate them to people who disagree.”
Earlier, Primerano briefed the convention on the state of affairs in Canada.
“We look back on times [of] the Holocaust, and I think what we said for many generations was that, as long as our government didn’t turn on us, we would be safe in the countries that we live,” he said. “And, you know, since Oct. 7, antisemitism has become emboldened in a way in Canada that it feels like our politicians know the only way to stay in office is to take an anti-Israel position.
“So, we’ve seen our mayor of Toronto be unwilling to come to an Oct. 7 vigil, unwilling to come to an Israeli flag-raising,” Primerano continued. “Our prime minister in Canada said that he would arrest Bibi [Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu] should he come to Canada. He put an arms embargo on Israel and, most importantly, as I’m sure many of you are aware, he rewarded Hamas with support for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“That type of rhetoric and action from our government has spilled into the streets because it has emboldened those who are willing to take shots at the Jewish community. And I mean that both literally and figuratively. Just [days earlier] in Toronto, we had three synagogues that were shot overnight in four days,” he said.
StandWithUs partners with many different groups, Primerano said, but because they work extensively with university students, some people might wonder how they fit with agencies like Hillel.
“Hillel is, in many ways, the voice on campus,” he said. “They are the coordinators of Jewish life. Their goal and their work and their ultimate obligation is to bring Jewish students and their allies together. Our job is, once those students are together, to help supplement the work that Hillel is doing with Israel education, with helping awareness towards antisemitism. Hillel has a wide array of responsibilities that go far beyond just advocacy. Our job is to supplement their work, to work with them as a partner and bring our resources into their space while they bring the students here to meet our resources.”
At the Vegas conference, StandWithUs unveiled SWUBOT, a free, downloadable artificial intelligence tool providing at-the-fingertips information on Israel, antisemitism and activism.
StandWithUs was marking 25 years since Rothstein founded the group with her husband, Jerry Rothstein, who is the organization’s chief operating officer, and Esther Renzer, who is the president.
Local Israeli cover band HaOpziot will get people dancing at this year’s Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations on April 21. (photo from JFGV)
“As we hold Israel close to our hearts, we are reminded that our connection transcends oceans,” wrote Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, in a recent enewsletter. “We have the power to bring Israel closer, to feel it and to celebrate it together right here at home through our community’s signature Yom Ha’atzmaut event.”
On Yom Ha’atzmaut, April 21, 7:30 p.m., Israeli musician and producer Ben Golan will headline our local celebration of Israel’s 78th Independence Day. (See jewishindependent.ca/story-of-israels-north.)
Golan came onto Federation’s radar when Shanken saw him perform during a 2024 visit to our community’s partnership region in Israel, the Upper Galilee. Golan is from Kiryat Shmona, where he also runs a recording studio.
In addition to his own performance, Golan will join local Israeli cover band HaOpziot for a couple of songs during their set.
HaOpziot is comprised of Goor Cohen (vocals, guitar), Kobi Gabay (vocals, guitar), Yotam Ronen (bass guitar), Avishai Weissberg (lead guitar) and Omer Yehi Shalom (drums). The group was founded by Ronen and the band’s former drummer, Maoz Kaufmann, in 2022. The pair posted a call-out on Facebook looking for musicians.
“The rest of us responded, we clicked instantly, and the Optziot were born,” said Cohen.
The band performs a few times a year, at clubs around Vancouver, as well as at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. To find out where and when they’re playing, people can follow the band on social media: Instagram, Facebook and/or YouTube.
When asked how to describe their musical sound or style, Cohen said, “In short: high-energy, loud and often fast.
“Our sound is a fusion of hard rock, punk and heavy metal, with subtle touches of Mizrahi influences, creating a style that strongly resonates with Israeli musical taste and culture,” he elaborated.
Each band member brings their different influences to the music, said Cohen, “ranging from mainstream to underground, old-school to contemporary, and classic to anarchistic. That diversity is a big part of what shapes our unique sound.”
Federation’s website page promoting the Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration highlights some of the songwriters whose music HaOpziot performs, including artists like Mashina, Eifo Hayeled, Berry Sakharof and Monica Sex.
The band’s popularity in the local Israeli community is how they came to Federation’s attention, their sound suiting the vibe that Federation would like the event to have, with the night ending in a dance party.
“This will be the biggest crowd we’ve played for so far,” Cohen told the Independent, “and we’re really excited to have more members of the community come see us in action.”
Unfortunately, Gabay won’t be able to make the Yom Ha’atzmaut concert. But no worries.
“For this show,” said Cohen, “we’ve asked Noga Veiman, our unofficial band manager, to join us on stage and take part as a band member – so, together, we’ll deliver the high-energy show we’ve been planning.”
The night, of course, will begin in a more sombre fashion, with the conclusion of Yom Hazikaron, the day of remembrance for Israel’s fallen soldiers and civilians who lost their lives in war and terror attacks. In Vancouver, the community’s memorial service will take place on April 20, 7:30 p.m., both in person and online. To attend or watch, register at jewishvancouver.com/zikaron.
For tickets ($36/adult, $12/youth, $75/family pack) to the Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations on April 21, go to jewishvancouver.com/yh2026.
Hundreds of terrorists entered Kibbutz Be’eri. Of the 1,000-plus residents, 101 kibbutz members were killed, 30 people were abducted and one-third of the houses were severely damaged or destroyed. (photo by Larry Barzelai)
My wife and I frequently travel to Israel to visit our three grandchildren. Our interest in Be’eri comes from its special connection with Kibbutz Hatzerim, the birthplace of our daughter-in-law. I feel that the story of Be’eri is a paradigm for the story of the Jewish people, the story of building something magnificent, experiencing a great
destruction and rebuilding afterwards to create something even better. It also illustrates how, when people work together, they can accomplish greater things.
Through a mutual friend, I arranged to meet Yaron, a lifelong member of Kibbutz Be’eri and one who had survived the Oct. 7 massacre. He graciously took me on a tour of the kibbutz as he described the events of that day. Much of what follows are descriptions of the events in his own words. He’s given me permission to share them with you.
On the evening of Oct. 6, Yaron and other kibbutzniks were celebrating the anniversary of the founding of Kibbutz Be’eri. Sharing drinks later with some of his closest friends, they started planning a summer hiking trip in the French Alps.
At 6:30 in the morning of Oct. 7, Yaron heard unusual noises, as he slept with his wife and two young children – both under 5 years old. It sounded like shelling and bombing. When the red alert siren went off, they ran to join their kids in their home’smamad (reinforced security room), which is also the kids’ bedroom.
Initially, Yaron wasn’t too concerned, even after receiving a text that the kibbutz may have been infiltrated by enemies. “OK, I guess we’ll be cooped up in here for a couple of hours,” he thought.
“Messages in the different kibbutz WhatsApp groups start reporting about terrorists walking inside Be’eri,” he writes. “It is close to 8 a.m. Someone writes a message that she hears gunshots.”
Shortly after that, someone reports hearing “terrible screams from the apartment above her, then silence.” Another says that one of the houses in the kibbutz is burning.
Yaron tries to stay calm. The power goes off. Their dog, who is not inside the room, is unusually silent. They hear that someone is in their house.
“They get to the room and try to open the door. I fight over the handle, heart pounding,” writes Yaron. “They don’t succeed! Every time they try, I swing the door handle back to the upright, ‘Safe’ position.”
Eventually, the terrorists give up on opening the mamad. Yaron ignores the calls in Arabic and English to come out of the room. He and his family listen, as the terrorists sing, while wrecking the house. First, there is the smell of gasoline, then smoke enters the room.
A neighbour advises them, via Yaron’s phone, that they should close the gap under the door with wet clothes.
“I take the sheet from my daughter’s bed, pour the bucket of urine on it and jam it under the door,” Yaron writes. “Outside the room, the fire grows fierce, it consumes five years of our lives in minutes…. We are in a closed room, we have no electricity, the children are coughing. I realize that the fire in our home is probably so crazy that even those inhumane monsters can’t still be waiting outside the door. I let go of the handle and I take a deep breath and feel some oxygen flow to my brain. So far, it was the pressure and fear of the terrorists that was suffocating me, but now the smoke is becoming the main problem.”
Yaron’s wife continues to text with neighbours, calling emergency team members repeatedly.
“All of our children’s books are burning outside,” Yaron shares. “Amidst all the terror we hear one of our favourites, a sound book of Arik Einstein songs, catching fire. The fire makes it play, chillingly, one of the happiest songs we know: ‘It’s Saturday morning, a beautiful day….’”
Suffocating on the smoke, the family has no choice but to open a window of their second-floor apartment. Despite the fear of what awaits them outside, the smoke is too much and they climb out onto the metal awning below.
“The four of us are sitting on the metal. We can breathe but we are exposed 2.5 metres (eight feet) above the ground. OK, now what?” Yaron recalls.
They can’t reach the emergency team, so they jump to the ground and hide in a nearby shed. Yaron jumps first, his wife hands him the kids, then follows.
A house identical to Yaron’s, which has been demolished, that gives an idea of the window of the family’s safe room and the challenge of jumping to the ground from the second storey. (photo by Larry Barzelai)
“Another neighbour reaches out, ‘Come to my place.’ I call him. I ask him to risk his life, leave his mamad and open his house for us. He does this while we’re on the phone. We are hesitant to come outside, we are debating with our eyes, and can’t decide if we should stay hidden in an unsafe shed or try to reach a safer place but risk exposure. I ask him to risk his life even more, to take a look outside and verify there are no terrorists in sight. He bravely obliges and says it’s clear. We were in the shed for maybe five, maybe 10 minutes, maybe it was two years, who knows. The kids are silent…. My heart is racing, I open the shed door and we sprint to the neighbour’s house.”
The fire has consumed their own home, and their beloved dog. Temporarily safe at the neighbours’, Yaron sees that the fire might cross over to where they are hiding. “We decide we need to evacuate,” he writes. “At a distance, we spot a few IDF soldiers. A small company or a team…. They escort us to a nearby building where my brother lives. We contact him and he let us in together with two more kibbutz members who had gotten stuck in a similar situation.”
Around 11 p.m., soldiers returned to Yaron’s brother’s place. “They helped us out, they asked us to cover our children’s eyes to shield them from the horrors on the kibbutz lanes and they escorted us to the yellow gate.”
“We made it out,” he writes. “We made it out.”
Most of Yaron’s extended family survived the massacre, except for an aunt who was murdered. In total, hundreds of terrorists entered the kibbutz. Of the 1,000-plus residents, 101 kibbutz members were killed, 30 people were abducted and one-third of the houses were severely damaged or destroyed.
Another victim of the massacre was Winnipeg-born Vivian Silver, who had, prior to Oct. 7, driven patients from the Erez border crossing to hospitals in Israel. She learned Arabic so that she could better communicate with her Bedouin neighbours. She truly believed in a peaceful future between the residents of Israel and the Palestinians of Gaza. Sadly, she was killed on Oct. 7. Her remains were so badly burned that it took weeks to identify her by DNA analysis.
Eli Sharabi, another resident of Be’eri, was kidnapped and taken to Gaza. In his book Hostage, he describes 491 tortuous days in Hamas captivity. He was looking forward to reuniting with his family once he was freed. Instead, upon his release, he discovered that his wife and daughters had been killed on Oct. 7. He cried at their gravesites for two hours, before making the decision that he had to move forward.
Immediately after Oct. 7, Yaron and his family spent many months living in an apartment in the Dead Sea area. They were alive and they were safe, relatively free from missile attacks, but life was far from normal. To say nothing of the trauma they were dealing with, reestablishing a kibbutz lifestyle, while living in a crowded hotel with none of the amenities that glue kibbutzniks together, was challenging.
The family has since relocated to a temporary custom-built village adjacent to Kibbutz Hatzerim. Be’eri and Hatzerim are sister kibbutzim, both founded in 1946. Be’eriwas named for Berl Katznelson, a founding father of Labour Zionism, whose nickname was Be’eri; Hatzerim, after a verse in Deuteronomy (2:23) that mentions hatzerim (farms/enclosures) “as far as Gaza.”
Be’eri and Hatzerim are both traditional socialist kibbutzim, populated mainly by people on the left of the political spectrum. Thus, it was natural for Kibbutz Hatzerim to offer to build a temporary kibbutz adjacent to them for people from Be’eri to live until their kibbutz was rebuilt over a two-year period.
The new neighbourhood on Kibbutz Be’eri, where Yaron and his family are planning on living. The rebuilding of the kibbutz is expected to take two years. (photo by Larry Barzelai)
Most former residents of Be’eri are now living in the temporary kibbutz. Some facilities, such as medical clinics and administrative offices, are shared by the two kibbutzim. Otherwise, the temporary Be’eri has its own houses, schools and offices. Hatzerim expanded its dental clinic, seniors lounge and grocery store to accommodate the increased needs of the larger population. In typical kibbutz fashion, members of both communities met many times to jointly plan this project.
Every day, Yaron leaves his family on the temporary Kibbutz Be’eri to commute 45 minutes to the original. About 60 kibbutz members are living there now, while it’s being rebuilt, and the plan is for most members to return by the start of the school year this September. A printing factory and agriculture are the two sustaining industries on Be’eri.
Yaron’s home, along with 140 others, was destroyed on Oct. 7. Recently, members of Kibbutz Be’eri made a collective decision to tear down all the damaged buildings. They want to try and wipe away the terrible memories of Oct. 7 and build anew. As one part of the construction work, the kibbutz is building a new subdivision, where Yaron and his family are planning to live.
But Yaron isn’t sure that he wants to return. He was born on Be’eri and has lived most of his life there. However, the memory of the trauma of Oct. 7 is very strong. He’s not sure he wants to move back to this place, where so much death and destruction happened. He confided that he may want to live outside of Israel, somewhere he can anticipate a more peaceful future for his children.
Larry Barzelai is a Vancouver family physician, specializing in care of the elderly, who travels to Israel frequently to visit his three grandchildren there. He is presently co-chair of the Jewish Medical Association of British Columbia.
Israeli Minster of National Security Itamar Ben G’vir holds up a champagne bottle in the Knesset on March 30, toasting the passage of Israel’s new death penalty law. (screenshot)
On March 30, two days before erev Passover, Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir celebrated the passing of his racist, dangerous, vengeful and unjust death penalty law by raising a champagne bottle and drinking to victory. The customary toast in Jewish tradition, of course, is to exclaim “L’chaim!” (“To life!”) Partly for this reason, the name chosen for the Jewish anti-death penalty group I co-founded, which now includes thousands of members in Israel and abroad, is “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty.” Those members of the Knesset who support this law have upended the phrase meant to evoke Judaism’s core life-affirming principles.
While Ben-Gvir claims to be a pious and observant Jew, his actions once again reveal his blatant disregard for Jewish values, and an essential mockery of Jewish ritual symbolism. He might as well have screamed “Lamavet” (“To death”) for his celebratory toast. Make no mistake: the passage of this death penalty law will certainly bring death for both convicted terrorists and innocent Israelis and Jews across the world. It is an abomination that will prove disastrous for multiple reasons.
Wine at Passover
One of the most well-known facts about the Passover seder, which both Jews and many non-Jews are keenly aware of, is that it traditionally involves drinking four cups of wine or grape juice. These four cups are a mandatory rabbinic commandment, representing the four expressions of redemption God used in Exodus 6:6-7 to promise freedom to the Israelites. Consumed at specific intervals in the seder, they symbolize freedom, joy, and key stages of liberation, from slavery to becoming a nation.
Perhaps one of the most widely understood reasons for drinking wine on Passover, as on Purim and on any Jewish holiday, is its symbolism of life, joy, sanctification, and transformation used to elevate holy moments like Shabbat, holidays and weddings. It signifies “cheering the heart,” redemption (specifically the four cups at Passover) and divine blessing, while also serving as a reminder of the need for temperance and balance. By lifting a glass for death just ahead of Passover, Ben-Gvir has effectively desecrated this sacred tradition with inverted, grotesque symbolism.
Another tradition of the Passover seder highlights the extent of the sacrilege of Ben-Gvir’s celebration. It is customary for seder-goers to remove 10 drops of wine, one for each of the plagues they chant, symbolizing how the suffering that each affliction produced for our people’s enemies diminishes our joy. This list culminates in the 10th plague of the death of the firstborn of Egypt at the hands of Malakh Hamavet, the Angel of Death. Instead of honouring this Passover ritual, Ben-Gvir profaned it by using wine to glorify killing.
The 10 Plagues
It is most fitting, with Passover only recently having ended, for L’chaim to use the 10 Plagues – with which God cursed the Egyptians in response to Pharaoh’s “hardened heart” – as symbols of the many reasons to oppose the death penalty. We align these biblical maladies with 10 damning strikes against the death penalty to highlight that capital punishment itself is a plague on any society that enacts it. Capital punishment condemns any government that wields it, including Israel now, infinitely more so than any of the individuals it condemns to death.
Dam (Blood): Israel’s death penalty law could increase terrorism, making it more enticing to would-be martyrs (shahids).
Tzifatdeiya (Frogs): It will undoubtedly endanger Jews worldwide.
Kinim (Lice): From Adolf Hitler to Donald Trump, Machiavellian politicians wield the death penalty as a political tool, particularly for election campaigns, and that is the case with this law. Consider the recent examples in Israel of Ben-Gvir’s noose-shaped lapel pin and his video promoting the death penalty law, illicitly filmed at a gallows museum in Jerusalem, as well as Limor Son Har-Melech’s Nazi-inspired Purim costume featuring an injection syringe.
Arov (Wild Animals): Jewish tradition makes the death penalty virtually impossible to carry out. Passage of this law has betrayed the life-affirming core of that tradition.
Dever (Pestilence): Terms like “deterrence,” which is a fallacious delusion when applied to the death penalty, and “retributive” or “proportional” justice, are veils for vengeance. Unequivocally, revenge does not bring closure for murder victims’ loved ones.
Sh’chin (Boils): The death penalty is racist, and this law in particular is viciously discriminatory.
Barad (Hail): The death penalty inherently violates the human right to life. Relatedly, it often results in physical torture, and always is psychological torture, for individuals counting down to their execution day. There is no humane way to execute human beings against their will.
Arbeh (Locusts): Many execution methods are direct Nazi legacies, including firing squad, gassing and lethal injection.
Choshech (Darkness): Capital punishment will traumatize the executioners within the Israel Prison Service. This law also risks placing anyone involved in contravention of human rights treaties.
Makat Bechorot (Death of the Firstborn):The death penalty inevitably risks executing the innocent.
Onward toward repeal
On March 30, the same day that the Knesset passed this barbaric law, a vast coalition of Jewish organizations across Israel and the world immediately petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to repeal it. The next day, the Supreme Court ordered that the state must respond to the petition and the request for an interim injunction by May 24. The members of L’chaim, together with Jews of good conscience and all of civilized humanity, will continue to do all we can to support this vital, sacred effort.
None other than death penalty abolitionist Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) aptly referred to capital punishment as the “Angel of Death.” It is high time to banish this medieval plague from Israel once and for all. The final uplifting song of the Passover seder is “L’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim” (“Next year in Jerusalem”). It is our consummate hope and intention that next Passover, Jerusalem will see the repeal of this monstrous legislation.
Cantor Michael Zoosmanis a certified spiritual care practitioner and received his cantorial ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He sits as an advisory committee member at Death Penalty Action and is co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty. Zoosman is a former Jewish prison chaplain and psychiatric hospital chaplain. He lives with his family in Vancouver.
A few days ago, our beloved, big, senior dog had a limp. We went to the vet, on short notice. Our regular vet was away. It was icy and snowy. I got the dog into my 23-year-old car, backed it out of the 123-year-old garage. We made it there on time. The dog got help for what is maybe arthritis or an injury, perhaps from the ice. Driving home, I wondered if I should run an errand but decided, nope, it was windy and raw. The dog should be warm and cozy at home again.
I parked the car in the driveway, got the dog inside and then returned to put my car into our narrow garage. I heaved open the left garage door, planting it into the ice. I hoped the prairie winds wouldn’t slam it shut again. When I got back into the car, it was completely dead. Wouldn’t start.
Then I realized that the heavy garage door had come off its bottom hinge. Huge screws were hanging halfway out. I closed it as best I could and locked it. Inside again, I nearly keeled over because I’d missed eating lunch.
When I warmed up, ate, triaged my work and called the Canadian Automobile Association, I anticipated the worst. The day hadn’t gone as planned.
Yet, CAA help arrived quickly. Miraculously, the fix was simple. A terminal needed to be replaced on my battery. At that moment, the raw day tempered by a cup of hot tea and a moment to think, I was seized with gratitude. What if my car had died on a busy street, with the dog inside? What if we’d been stuck at the vet? What if I’d stopped to run an errand and then been stuck with a car that wouldn’t start and a dog hurting too much to walk home?
Back inside, I looked again at a garage door photo I’d taken. It could have been even worse. What if I hadn’t noticed the screws hanging off the hinge? What if I’d shoved the heavy door and it crushed me underneath it instead? The possibilities were far worse once I’d thought about what happened. This has a happy ending. My husband will repair the hinge when that ice melts. My car now starts. My dog is on medicine and will hopefully be better soon. Gratitude felt like the only answer here.
This was midweek, and we stayed close to home through the weekend. Though we live near downtown Winnipeg, where the national NDP convention took place, we steered clear. At synagogue, one kid played baritone sax for the family service on Shabbat, as little kids danced along in their seats. My other kid greeted families in the lobby as they arrived. Before the wiggly kids got there, we spent a few moments at the main service and did the Birchot Hashachar, the morning blessings, where we thank G-d repeatedly for the good things, the everyday basics, happening in our lives.
On Sunday, our teens spent time on science fair preparation and on helping deliver Passover hampers for those in need, and we adults worked on the household. My husband cleaned steadily but managed to burn something in the microwave, break a pencil sharpener and a cereal bowl. I began to worry again about this weird bad luck, when I thought of the Birchot Hashachar. I remembered what to do. Being resilient meant pausing and finding gratitude instead.
Emergency services had to be called to the high school earlier this week for a student, but, this weekend, my kids are safe, healthy and doing productive things. Though I walked past slogans calling for radical protests at the NDP convention and a woman attendee wearing a keffiyeh at the café right near home, we’re safe, for now.
This year’s celebration of Israel’s birthday feels emotionally like a larger, more difficult version of our small misadventures. War is no joke. Israel is really going through it right now. Via social media, I see these extended family members in my tribe, my community, running for bomb shelters and fighting. Yet, I’m so impressed by the way Israelis strive for beauty and everyday normalcy – trips to the park, surfing and making music – with so much violent disruption. It’s been scary to watch, and I’m not there. That said, maybe the lesson in this birthday is seeing how, after these horrible, life-shattering events, it’s possible to practice that mind shift. The gratitude one, where strangers care for one another in bomb shelters, sharing food, music and space while struggling with what could have happened.
It’s unsettling to be Jewish near a Canadian political convention peddling antisemitic tropes. I’m reeling from seeing a premier who lives near me, who is also a parent I’ve spoken to on the playground, say deeply unsettling words on the NDP stage. Even if Wab Kinew’s “Epstein class” comment wasn’t intended to be antisemitic, his words, about this “dumb war” horrified me.
Jewish tradition teaches that all lives are valuable. Premier Kinew said North American lives shouldn’t be lost – to stop a repressive regime that has already killed thousands of its citizens. Our lives are no more valuable than theirs. Iranians deserve help, as do all the people harmed by the horrible regime and its terror proxies.
In precarious times, it’s helpful to seek the good. To remember that heavy garage door, still dangling off its hinge, the car that died, thankfully, in the driveway and was fixed, and the veterinary help that came when needed. Being grateful and practising joy, even when it’s a strain, is complicated. I want to be happy on Israel’s birthday, but it’s a complicated emotion, too. It requires practising gratitude and celebration even when times are tough, but that’s what we’re “commanded” to do sometimes.
This year, I wish for peace and everything good for everyone in Israel and its neighbours, as well as in other places where conflict reigns. Thank goodness Israel exists, as a place of refuge for all Jews, but it’s OK to wish for safer times at home in the diaspora, too. May the year ahead be an easier one, without war or complication; one in which we can all embrace less fear and more simple joy.
Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.
Kindergarten children preparing matzah, 1925.(photo by Joseph Schweigh, KKL-JNF Photo Archive)
In uncertain times like these, as the war with Iran continues, attention often turns to the traditions and customs that have carried generations through both hardship and renewal. Against this backdrop, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael–Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) has shared some rare images from its photo archive documenting Passover across the years. The images, dating from before the declaration of the state of Israel, reflect enduring elements of Jewish life, including tradition, education and communal practice.
A festive parade of Jewish soldiers during Passover in Jerusalem, 1948. (photo by Rudolf Jonas, KKL-JNF Photo Archive, KKL-JNF Photo Archive)
Among them are a photograph from the 1920s showing kindergarten children preparing matzah dough; documentation from a festive Passover parade for Israeli soldiers in 1948, the year of Israel’s independence; and families in Jerusalem’s Mea She’arim neighbourhood participating in the burning of chametz in 1983, a year marked by the effects of the Lebanon War. Though decades apart, the scenes show how holiday practices supported community connection and hope during periods of instability.
A wall newspaper produced in the 1950s and 1960s by Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael–Jewish National Fund’s education department, which was displayed in Jewish schools in England. (photo from KKL-JNF Banner collection displayed in the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem)
The archival materials also include a wall newspaper produced in the 1950s and 1960s by KKL-JNF’s education department, which was displayed in Jewish schools in England. The poster places the Exodus from Egypt alongside images of agricultural work, tree planting and communal life in the land of Israel, illustrating how Passover was given renewed meaning in the Zionist era as a bridge between a biblical narrative and a modern vision of national renewal.
The burning of chametz in the Mea She’arim neighbourhood in Jerusalem, 1983. (photo from KKL-JNF Photo Archive)
“These photographs show how people held onto tradition, community and hope during uncertain periods,” noted Efrat Sinai, director of archives at KKL-JNF. “Viewed today, they highlight both historical experience and the sources of resilience that continue to shape Jewish life. Passover appears here as a living educational framework, a connection between Jewish communities in Israel and abroad, and a reflection of the strength of these communities across generations.”
KKL-JNF’s photo archive, which contains tens of thousands of historical photographs, serves as a living chronicle of life in the land of Israel and beyond. Together, these materials are a reminder that the story of Israel has never been defined by hardship alone, but also by its ability to hold onto hope, tradition and the promise of brighter days ahead.
– Courtesy Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund
Another day, another missile alert: Israelis sheltering at the Herbert Samuel Hotel miklat. The writer and his wife take refuge there, but their dog, Max, won’t leave home. (photo by Gil Zohar)
Those who think history doesn’t repeat itself may wish to WhatsApp my 97-year-old mother, Joyce, to discuss how millions of Londoners like herself sheltered in the British capital’s Tube stations during the Blitz and later in the Second World War. The Luftwaffe bombings traumatized her and her two younger sisters, Anita and Renee. Today, the same “rain” of terror is falling across Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem.
In Tel Aviv and in the neighbouring cities of Ramat Gan and Bnei Brak, nine underground stops on the Red Line of the Light Rail are open 24/7 as public bomb shelters, including on Shabbat, when there is no transportation service. Some denizens of Greater Tel Aviv have taken to sleeping on the station platforms overnight rather than returning home after each all-clear alert.
At the time of writing, the Red Line is not operating. Commuters from Jerusalem to central Israel have been temporarily required to change trains at Ben Gurion Airport before continuing to Tel Aviv.
Not surprisingly in a country where kvetching is the national sport, some people have complained that not all the underground stations have been opened to serve as protected spaces. The Ministry of Transportation has published a list of stations deemed safe, which the frantic hordes may freely enter when the missile alert screams.
The Carlebach station – named after Esriel Gotthelf Carlebach (1908-1956), the Leipzig, Germany-born pioneering journalist, founding editor of the daily Maariv, and cousin of Berlin-born troubadour Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach – has not been opened, as it is not considered suitable as a secure shelter for engineering reasons.
In the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Yerushalmis are also taking cover underground. While all the stops on Jerusalem’s single tram line are on the surface, the Navon Train Station – which is 90 metres below street level and was designed to function as a nuclear bomb shelter – is now serving its secondary purpose apart from transportation.
Home Front Command (HFC) and Ministry of Defence officials have praised the Israeli public for its resilience in quickly reaching a safe place to shelter when the siren goes off.
Israel updated its national building code in 1992 following the Gulf War the previous year, when Saddam Hussein rained Scud missiles down on Tel Aviv and Haifa from Iraq. Previously, zoning laws had required condominium apartment buildings to incorporate a basement bomb shelter, but the threat of heavier-than-air poison gas attacks made those shelters potential death traps. Thus, gas masks were distributed, and every apartment in new residential buildings is now required to have a reinforced and sealed security room, called a mamad in Hebrew. Typically, these are a bedroom protected with extra thick concrete and equipped with a steel door and heavy shutters. A wet towel placed by the door makes for a reasonably airtight seal. Some newer buildings have been designed so that the area around the elevator shaft and stairs serves as a protected miklat (shelter) for the entire floor. It’s a uniquely Israeli way of getting to know one’s neighbours.
The number of fatalities has been miraculously low in the night-and-day barrages from Iran and Lebanon since the current war started on Feb. 28. At press time, 28 people – including two soldiers – had been killed in the hundreds of missile and drone attacks targeting civilian regions in the Jewish state. More than 400 ballistic missiles had been launched. No information has been released on the number of drones fired.
Nine Israelis were killed and more than 40 injured in Beit Shemesh on March 1 when an Iranian missile hit a residential neighbourhood, destroying a synagogue and collapsing the adjoining bomb shelter. The shelter was in a pre-1991 building that had been retrofitted.
A Thai agricultural worker in central Israel and four Palestinian women in a beauty salon in the village of Beit Awwa, southwest of Hebron, were killed on March 18 by debris from an Iranian missile. Barrages employing cluster munitions have hit multiple locations – including near my home in downtown Jerusalem. More than 100 residents in Dimona and Arad were wounded in missile strikes on those two southern cities March 21; most were not in bomb shelters, according to an HFC investigation.
Train service has been interrupted at Tel Aviv’s Savidor station and in Holon, where, as well, several buses were damaged. Military censorship prohibits publishing the addresses of hits.
Max prefers to stay home when the sirens sound. (photo by Gil Zohar)
On March 15, Israel Railways reopened the train stations in Hod HaSharon-Sokolov, Bnei Brak, Rishon LeZion HaRishonim and Dimona, which had been shut down when the war began. Full service resumed on the lines from Herzliya to Ofakim, and Herzliya to Jerusalem. While the latter stops at Ben Gurion Airport, service at the international air hub remains greatly reduced. Some travelers are choosing to take a bus to Amman, Jordan, or Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to fly abroad. The situation remains fluid.
For my wife and me, four overseas guests at our Pesach seder have had to say “Next Year in Jerusalem” because their flights have been canceled. We live in a charming stone building in the city centre, which was built in 1886 and has neither a miklat nor a mamad. When the siren sounds, we head to the Herbert Samuel Hotel across the street. There, the synagogue two floors below ground level doubles as the reinforced space. Last Friday, as the Sabbath approached and the air raid alert rang, a guest was playing the violin, serenading those present with the strains of “Shalom Aleichem.”
And what of our dog Max? The poor mutt refuses to leave his comfort zone – our unprotected apartment. With every second meaning the potential difference between life and death, we leave him to lie on the sofa and howl at the sirens.
Gil Zohar is a journalist and tour guide who lives in Jerusalem.
The notes are carefully removed. (photo from Gil Zohar)
The Kotel – the last remaining part of Herod the Great’s vast Second Temple complex – got a spruce up ahead of Passover. As is tradition, volunteers took to the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City to remove hundreds of thousands of the small prayer notes to God tucked into the cracks of Judaism’s holiest site. The papers are ceremonially buried at the ancient Mount of Olives cemetery.
The cleaning tradition is repeated at Rosh Hashanah, to keep the Kotel from becoming too cluttered. The notes are carefully removed using sticks that have been dipped in a mikvah (ritual bath), the whole process overseen by the Wall’s official rabbi, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch. This year, there were no worshippers or visitors at the Kotel due to restrictions on gathering in large groups amid the US-Israeli war with Iran.
Gil Zohar is a journalist and tour guide who lives in Jerusalem.
Sharren Haskel, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, spoke with Canadian media on March 9. (photo from Consulate General of Israel in Toronto and Western Canada)
A terror attack against Canadian Jews on par with the Bondi Beach attack in Australia last December is inevitable if leaders in this country do not address the growing antisemitism crisis, according to Israel’s deputy foreign minister.
In an interview with the Independent Monday, Sharren Haskel reacted to recent shootings at Toronto synagogues and a larger trend of antisemitic acts.
“This will end in blood if the government is not taking serious actions. This is going to end exactly like the Bondi massacre,” she said.
Haskel is attuned to the Canadian situation because she was born in this country – one of only three Canadian-born individuals in Israeli history to sit in the Knesset. Her father lives in Canada and she has other family members here, who she visits frequently.
“I was always so proud of Canada being such a safe haven for Jews,” she said, calling Canada a place where acceptance of minorities, tolerance and coexistence have been strong, defining values.
“And to know where Canada was and where it is today is absolutely devastating,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking for me, and I think that not enough people truly understand the danger the Jewish community is [facing].”
Shootings at Jewish institutions and other acts of vandalism and violence have made Canada, according to an Israeli government report last year, the “champion on antisemitism.”
“It’s insane,” said Haskel.
When a racialized or other minority community in Canada expresses discomfort with a situation, she said, significant steps are taken to alleviate the problem.
Jews do not enjoy a parallel level of empathy, she said. “[Jews] say I am violently being attacked. I’m not allowed to enter my classes. I’ve been beaten. My business was shot at,” she said. “And nothing. Nothing.”
Elected officials have allowed the situation to go too far, said Haskel.
“The government is not setting a very clear red line,” she said. “We are far beyond words. Words don’t matter anymore. This is about actions now.”
The deputy foreign minister added that Canadians, too often, demonstrate inappropriate responses to international events. Critics of Israeli military approaches to Hamas and to the Iranian regime are coming from a place of privilege.
“In Canada, you are very lucky,” she said. “This is one of the most peaceful countries, you enjoy its freedom, and many people in the younger generation have received that freedom on a silver platter. This is not the case in the Middle East. Israel has faced a six-fronted war for the last two years against six different armies – all of them sponsored, trained, armed by this vile, fanatical regime in Iran.”
The Iranian regime has also undermined Israel’s neighbours, she noted, destroying Lebanon’s politics, social fabric and culture. In Syria, Iran backed the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which was overthrown in 2024 after a civil war in which the government explicitly targeted and murdered its own citizens, particularly minorities, killing at least 300,000 people and possibly as many as 650,000.
“It’s very easy to speak from a very comfortable, liberated place,” said Haskel. “But our reality in the Middle East is a very difficult and harsh one, where we are still fighting for our survival, for our freedom, for our rights as minorities here in this region against very extreme, radical, fanatical terrorist organizations and terrorist regimes.”
Haskel hedged on whether Israel’s war aim in the current conflict with Iran is regime change.
“The goal is to take out the long-term existential threat over Israel,” she said. “This is how we define it, and this is the goal of the war.”
That involves taking out Iran’s nuclear program, she said, as well as its ballistic missile program, and neutralizing the experts who are developing, manufacturing and advancing tools for mass destruction. This war is aimed at conclusively ending that threat, she said.
Past Israeli military and covert actions against the Iranian nuclear program resulted in continued Iranian determination to rebuild, according to Haskel.
“They didn’t get the message of our capability, of how determined we are that they will not be able to reach that master plan of annihilation of the state of Israel,” she said. “They’ve been working tirelessly on renovating, on re-creating, on reconstructing, all of that over again. And we are at the point where we say, look, you know, we cannot go every year into an operation like that to eliminate an immediate threat like a nuclear weapon, mass destruction, disruptive weapons.”
Haskel stops short of declaring whether that requires regime change, echoing US President Donald Trump, who has urged Iranians themselves to overthrow their government.
She is hopeful that the US-Israel actions will open a path “for the Iranian people to liberate themselves and to change these fanatical tyrants who have been abusing and torturing them for so many years.”
Should the regime be replaced by a Western-oriented government, the impacts would be broader than the Middle East. For example, Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran, is engaged in drug trafficking and money laundering in Latin America to help fund their operations, she noted.
Haskel believes that the world should be grateful to the United States and Israel.
“President Trump and Prime Minister [Binyamin] Netanyahu are leading right now an effort to protect humanity,” she said. “Every leader and every sensible person around the world needs to ask themselves who they want as their friends and who would come to their help when they really needed it the most.
“During our time in history, when freedom, real freedom, is in danger,” she said, “we are very fortunate to have two leaders like Trump and Netanyahu that stood up and took actions to defend humanity, to defend Western democracies.”
Haskel said that representing Israel carries a profound responsibility not only to the country itself but also to Jewish communities around the world. For her, that responsibility is deeply personal, particularly when it comes to Canada, where she has such close ties. Hearing directly from relatives and friends about rising fear and insecurity has reinforced her sense of duty.
Haskel, who has served as deputy foreign minister since 2024, was first elected to the Knesset in 2015. She was born in Toronto to an Israeli father and a Moroccan mother who met in Paris. The family lived in Canada before moving to Israel when Sharren was a year old. She was raised in Kfar Saba and studied in the United States and Australia. First elected on the Likud slate, she joined Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party in 2021.
