Jewish Voices Matter Too
Chaya Vlotta
One of the best things about Aotearoa New Zealand is our passion for helping others. We stand up against injustice and we don’t leave people behind. We strive towards equity and inclusion, respecting the diversity of our people and the way this benefits our society. However, right now, as a Jew, I feel like I’ve been left in the dust. Everywhere I look people are demanding that I shouldn’t exist as I am, that my pain is worthless and that I must deny my connection to my indigenous homeland. It hurts, and I’m not sure how I’m meant to feel safe when so many people are actively justifying the massacre of my people.
The scare of the day: staff and students at Diocesan School for Girls received an email inviting them to participate in meetings to express their solidarity with Palestine. Students were encouraged to work together and find actionable ways of bringing peace to this community. In theory, this is a noble idea - everyone wants to end the suffering of innocent people and in this ‘social media generation’ everyone’s voice matters. However, some crucial details have been omitted, which have left Jewish students at Diocesan feeling incredibly hurt and vulnerable. Their feelings matter too, and the fear that courses through my veins when I see literal school children being presented an entirely one-sided narrative that completely disregards mine and my family’s grief also matters.
The world is watching carnage unfold in the Middle East right now, and all eyes are on what is happening in Gaza. What no one is talking about, though, is what sparked this entire debacle. Until October 7th, the leaders of Gaza - a terrorist organisation called Hamas - were in a ceasefire with the State of Israel, the indigenous homeland of the Jewish people. They broke this by attacking innocent Israeli civilians by land, air and sea. The terrorists attacked a music festival where they brutally murdered, sexually assaulted and kidnapped over 200 people who were just there to party. They went house to house through villages and murdered children, parents and grandparents in the most gruesome ways. They filmed it and posted the atrocities they had committed for the world to see. 1,400 lives were taken that day. Hostages and corpses were taken back to Gaza and paraded around like trophies. It was an unspeakable level of violence and, to be honest, the way they killed people and abused them before and after their death are impossible to write here whilst still maintaining our innocence as young people in New Zealand. If you want to know, you can look for yourself. They videoed it, they’re proud of it.
Every day since then, Hamas has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, targeting civilian areas. Luckily, the special defence system Israel developed - the Iron Dome - has meant that many of these rockets can be intercepted, which is why we don’t see as much devastation from Hamas’s constant rocket fire as we see in Gaza. Israel has invested in ways to protect its citizens, Hamas has invested in ways to kill Jews.
Hamas, the terrorist government of Gaza, has said that this will not be the last time they attack Israel in this vile way. They have no wish to coexist, they only want to annihilate the State of Israel and kill as many Jews as possible - it says so in their charter. They also want to kill gay people, transgender people, Christians and basically anything that isn’t them. So, Israel was left with a huge task: to defend its citizens from an ongoing, imminent terrorist threat and retrieve the 240+ hostages being held by the terrorists in booby-trapped tunnels. They called to evacuate the area of Gaza that they were needing to target, but the terrorist government Hamas wouldn’t let its citizens leave. Israel had to neutralise terror bases and places where weapons were being held so that the casualties of a ground-based rescue operation could be mitigated. The problem here is that Hamas hides these bases and storage facilities within civilian areas on purpose due to their disregard for their own civilians’ lives. They want their citizens to die protecting terrorists so that a) the world will be sympathetic and b) they may die as ‘martyrs.’ They see value in death where we see value in life. So many Palestinians have been killed because of Hamas’s choices, it is truly tragic.
The Jewish population of New Zealand and Jews across the entire world are currently traumatised and terrified. We are mourning the deaths of our family and friends in Israel and trying to understand how such an atrocity could occur in our indigenous homeland. We are scared for our loved ones taken hostage and our arms ache for the survivors we cannot reach to hold and comfort. We are so profoundly connected to Israel on a spiritual level that even those without family or friends involved have been hurt incredibly deeply by this massacre.
On top of this, people throughout the world are calling to delegitimize our right to our indigenous land and our right to unencumbered existence as a religious group wherever we choose. Anti-Jewish racism (also called anti-semitism) is also on the rise, and Jews throughout the world are being targeted, physically attacked and even murdered. It is terrifying. I’ve taken off my Star of David necklace that I’ve worn every day since I was 12 because I am so, so scared. Let me tell you why: when people take to the streets chanting ‘Free Palestine’ and ‘From the River to the Sea,’ they are essentially saying that Israel, my indigenous homeland, shouldn’t exist. Do you remember what happened the last time we didn’t have a homeland? Six million of us were systematically murdered. When people talk about freeing Palestine but can’t even bring themselves to mention the atrocities Hamas committed on October 7th, they are effectively prioritising Palestinian lives over ours. That’s scary. As is the legitimate violence towards us that the ‘Free Palestine’ movement condoned: I’ve received death threats online, and it’s been said to my face that New Zealand needs to find a ‘solution to the Jewish problem.’ I’m scared to talk about what I’m feeling with my friends, I’m scared to walk down the street, I’m scared to be at home by myself, I’m scared to tell people I’m Jewish. I’m scared to simply ‘be’.
The most painful part is that there’s no global outcry for our dead, our kidnapped, or our injured. There’s no acknowledgement that what Hamas did was wrong, unjustified and horrific. There’s no call for them to be stopped from doing it again, which they will.
There’s no need to choose one group of innocent civilians over another, but by mentioning only one side’s suffering that is what that email to the Dio staff and students did. It hurt to see that, it made Jewish students feel unsafe, unvalued and unheard. It made all of us feel pushed aside and left in the dust. That’s not what we do here in Aotearoa. The Palestinians in Gaza absolutely need to be freed - from Hamas, their terrorist government who uses them as human shields. Israelis also deserve to feel safe in their land and live without the constant threat of rockets and terrorist attacks. Jews around the world deserve to feel safe, represented and valued when they walk down the street, as do Muslims and Christians.
So, let’s stand together and pray for lasting peace. Let’s be people who make others feel safe, not belittled and disregarded. Let’s all be the type of people who will listen to pain and help shoulder the burden. Your Jewish friends deserve to be heard and seen, too. Please hear us when we tell you how we feel - there’s room for everyone to be kept safe, we don’t need to choose.
With the utmost love and care,
Chaya Vlotta