October 7: A Survivor’s Story, Part II
Editor’s Note: On the inaugural episode of our podcast, Two Jews, Three Views, Michael Golden interviews Deborah Ben Aderet, an Israeli who lived on Kibbutz Zikim until October 7, when her family escaped the Hamas massacre. Deborah is now speaking in the U.S.; JEWDICIOUS carried one of her presentations earlier this week. Deborah is also a moderator of the Facebook page Life on the border with Gaza: things people may not know (but should).
Brief excerpts from today’s interview with Deborah Ben Aderet:
“There's a one-year-old and three-year-old hostage. I mean, in my personal opinion, I'm sure they're dead, but no one talks about that on the news. Can you imagine if Mexico came and took a baby from California?”
“We let innocent Palestinians come into work, come in and get medical treatment. And a couple of them turned on us and told Hamas Where everybody lives, go burn this house. This was proven. They had lists of where to go, what house to burn, what cars to take. So why is this Israel's problem to take care of people on a side that's run by terrorists that clearly call for our destruction?”
“Israel never says, ‘let's go attack in Gaza. This sounds fun today.’ People are losing track of what happened. And if you go to Israel, everyone has a family member who died, somebody who's missing a limb, somebody whose grandparent was burned alive, somebody whose friend never came back to school — whose friend never came back to school. It is one degree of separation.”
“There was a poll conducted not by Israelis, but by the PA, about who Palestinians are supporting since the 7th. And it’s very sad to say that a huge amount supported Hamas. There are Palestinians who oppose them, but in my opinion, it’s not a big enough amount that actually wants peace and to get rid of Hamas… There isn’t some big coalition of Palestinians against Hamas because they’ll be murdered.”
“I want to say, ‘wake up, stupid protesting people. They want to kill you too.’ For gay or LGBT or Transgender people, it’s like chickens for Kentucky fried chicken. The best case scenario is that you go to jail. That's the best scenario. And the typical one is you get dragged by your feet through the city or thrown off a building.”
“A part of me thinks, This has nothing to do with history. They just have to know terror is bad. Cutting the heads off of three-month-old babies, bad. Gang-raping 10-year-old girls, bad. Burning babies, bad. It's not about history, actually. You can have your opinions about the Israel-Palestinian conflict and land. This is not about that.”
“I often say I feel like I'm way more appalled at the rest of the world than I am at what actually happened. I mean, terrorists are terrorists, but this is the world's chance to be on the right side of this.”
MICHAEL GOLDEN is the Editor-in-Chief of JEWDICIOUS. Excerpts have been edited for length and clarity.
From unpacking history and politics to navigating the nuances of family and personal relationships to finding the human angle on sports and entertainment — plus our unsparing take on what’s happening in the Jewish world — the canvas at JEWDICIOUS is limitless! JOIN US!!
