Meet Talia.
Spend some time talking to her and you’d never know she’s only 20 years old. She is composed beyond her years, but of course she would be after having experienced physical assaults and death threats as a reaction to her commitment to Israel and her faith.
Talia is originally from Naperville, Illinois, a town she describes as wildly lacking diversity. She recounts her youth as being from one of the few Jewish families in town, and among the only Jewish students at her 5000 person high school. She has encountered antisemitism for as long as she could remember, with the first incident happening when a fellow kindergartener threw a fistful of pennies at her at the age of 5. In high school, people would make Holocaust jokes, along with casual microaggressions. As she grew up, Talia recognized that the majority of the antisemitism she experienced stemmed from ignorance, since most people had never met a Jewish person, they just parroted what they heard at home.
Talia is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, and as such is fiercely proud of her Judaism and love for Israel.
Her grandparents, upon coming to America, opted to assimilate, to become Americans, to fully integrate into the great country that welcomed them after the worse atrocity in Jewish history. They did not speak Yiddish or Hebrew at home, they did not keep Shabbat. Her father was encouraged to embrace his American identity and to achieve the American Dream. Her grandmother lost her faith in God after enduring the Holocaust, after all, if there is a God, how could he let this happen? She still keeps so many of the customs, traditions, and the holidays that have united Jews for generations.
Talia sees things differently regarding her relationship with God. She knows there is a God because her grandparents survived, lived to establish a family, and Israel was created to protect us. “There has to be something bigger at play since we are still here.”
However, growing up Jewish in America can often be inconvenient. Sometimes it feels like having to choose between your Judaism and being a normal American kid with extracurricular activities and wanting to hang out with friends on weekends.
When Talia was 13, she came to Israel for the first time on a Bat Mitzvah trip. She felt a huge pull to come to Israel, to meet her extended family, to answer the lingering questions of ‘who am I?’ and why?’. This trip changed her forever. “For the first time in my life I understood everything. Going to Hebrew school you learn the stories, but being able to walk in the places… I had never seen so many jews in one place… it was an indescribable feeling. Home. It’s the only way I can put it. You feel home, you feel accepted, loved, a sense of belonging that you never truly feel in America.”
Talia came back to Israel for a semester abroad while she was in High School, an experience that made her realize that she needed to move to Israel as an adult. She returned to America, and shortly thereafter the 2021 Israel-Hamas conflict erupted… and an Israel advocate was born.
At the age of 17, as a Junior in high school (grade 11) Talia arranged a small rally in support of Israel. 50 people were scheduled to attend, along with the necessary protection from law enforcement. What Talia hadn’t anticipated was the mob that showed up to counter protest. There were easily over 2000 people in attendance, largely made up of people who couldn’t locate Israel, let alone Gaza on a map, had no idea who Hamas were, but rather, were blindly supporting Hamas as a result of wokeness, social media activism, and because it’s the trend. Talia witnessed friends that she grew up with, friends that sat at her family table for shabbat dinners all of a sudden taking to social media to post about destroying Israel and how Jews are evil. At this rally, Talia, along with friends and family, were attacked.
The rally was cut short by police due to safety concerns. “This was my wakeup moment. We were here first. We were peaceful, we did things correctly, and you’re telling US to leave? We were being punished for something THEY are doing. The only place in the world that cares about protecting Jewish people is Israel.”
The mob surrounds the cars of Israel supporters as they try to leave their rally. Friends were physically attacked – they were punched, spat on, had their flag stolen, burned, and then thrown back into the car while on fire. “It was like a scene out of a third world war zone, except that it was in one of the most affluent towns in America.” The car carrying Talia’s family was stopped at an intersection, surrounded by 50 people who began banging on the windows, chanting “We’re going to kill you Jews” in no uncertain terms. The post advertising the rally was full of comments calling for rape and murder. “They told us exactly what they were planning to do. Believe people when they say things.”
This was Talia’s catalyst moment, and she got involved with hasbara and public speaking. She was a speaker at the No Fear rally against antisemitism in Washington.
Talia set off for her freshman year at Indiana University and was greeted with more antisemitic ‘microaggressions”. She was called a kike when she called things off with a boy she was dating (who later admitted to not know what it meant), and her roommate tried to ‘find where she hid her horns.’ She decided this school wasn’t the right fit for her and transferred to Florida International University in Miami, Florida for her Fall 2023 semester.
Moving to Miami was an eye opening experience. It was the first time Talia experienced life as part of a Jewish community. She learned about Jews with different heritage from her own – Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews.
On October 6th she was a normal American college kid. On October 7th, everything changed.
“I woke up to tons of missed calls from my parents and family. I called my dad back, and at first he was silent on the line, and then I could hear him sobbing.”
“Hamas attacked Israel, he said, whatever you see, just know that it’s worse. Call your brother because he is about to go fight. If you don’t call him now, there is no guarantee that you will be able to.” Talia’s brother enlisted in the Israeli Defense Forces in 2021 as a Paratrooper.
Talia called her brother. The phone call couldn’t have been more than 30 seconds, but it felt like forever. By the tone of his voice Talia knew something was deeply wrong. “This is going to be a war. I got the call, I have to go. I don’t know entirely what the severity is, but things will come out. Whatever you see, that’s where we are and what we’re doing. The reality will be worse than what you’ll see. I love you with my entire heart and soul. I’m going to be ok, I’m going to come back. I’ll see you soon, I promise.” He had been in Gaza in the early months of the war and has since been released in good health.
Talia felt the ground fall out from under her feet. “Nothing could have prepared me for that moment.” She tried to read the news, to learn what was happening, to see if friends and family were safe, but couldn’t get answers. She was alone in a new city, with no one to talk to about what was happening. The rest of the weekend was a blur of reading the news, crying until the point of exhaustion, and then sleeping.
Monday rolls around, and knowing that her brother, her rock, wouldn’t have wanted her to stop living, she went to school. Florida International University is a commuter school with no real on-campus life, but suddenly the campus was plastered in posters declaring ‘Glory to the Martyrs’ and ‘Resistance by any means necessary.’ Someone screamed ‘October 7th is the greatest day of my life’ as she walked by and all she could see was red.
“They literally don’t see Jews as human beings. They have dehumanized us to the point that they see us as mythical demons that are worthy of death. It’s the whole wokeness – the Arabs know what they are saying, and they manipulate these kids who are susceptible, who want to be the generation for change. They paint Israel and the Jews to be whatever the innocent kids will hate, whether it’s racist or homophobic or colonizers. As a result, they don’t see Jews as anything more than the lies they’ve been fed. To them, the people killed on October 7th weren’t innocent kids in their beds, or ravers at a concert. They were just Zionists who deserved it.”
“These people claim to be for human rights, yet here they are celebrating the death of human beings.”
All of a sudden Talia found herself alone. Childhood best friends are posting to ‘kill all zionists’. They were calling her brother a terrorist, when a few short years earlier they were praising him as a hero. The pain was intense. “At the end of the day, despite everything, you’re just a Jew.”
“My grandmother is 98 year old. She couldn’t distinguish between what had happened in southern Israel and what she witnessed in the Holocaust. People being burned alive, parents being shot in front of their children. She is living through these atrocities twice in her lifetime, and we are carrying their trauma.”
“Being a proud Jew comes at a really dangerous cost. Its inconvenient, it makes life harder, it puts you at risk, you don’t feel physically, mentally safe anywhere other than Israel.”
The aftermath of October 7th had a detrimental impact on Talia’s health. She started seeing a sleep specialist and a cardiologist. No one seemed to understand the level of trauma that Jews were experiencing – a trauma that was felt at the cellular level. She became a shell of a person with so much heaviness and grief. Carrying it alone was debilitating.
“In Israel, everyone is carrying the grief together, so the load is lessened on each person.”
Things on campus got worse in the subsequent days, so Talia opened a chapter of Students Supporting Israel (SSI). Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) was created in response. The Jews were always outnumbered, and as the president of SSI, Talia became SJPs prime target. She overheard the head of SJP threated to kill her if she was ever alone on campus.
Talia was very open on Social media and would post constantly. She would post about her brother and people would comment that they hoped he would be ‘blown to pieces.’ In person, things were bad; on social media, they were far worse. People would say things that you wouldn’t even imagine are in the realm of human capabilities.
“I felt helpless. Yes, I was doing this, but I felt like it wasn’t enough. I knew I had to be in Israel.”
Talia joined a volunteer trip that was coming to Israel on winter break. She thought that coming to Israel would be hard and of course, there were the moments – like going to the south and witnessing what had happened. But for the first time in months she could finally breathe, smile, and laugh again.
“I knew I couldn’t go back. Why would I go back? It’s not normal for a 20 year old to see a heart specialist or to worry about death threats. Why would I choose that as my reality when I have the option to leave? I wasn’t running away from it. I was running to something better. I was running to a country of love, resilience, where I know I am protected. Where I can live, not just survive.”
Talia knew she had the power to impact change. She went to speak at the Knesset to emphasize the importance of creating a connection between Israel and Diaspora Jews, and new policies were created.
“I am still continuing with my advocacy work, but now I have the upper hand. I know how to talk to Gen Z because I am them. And I am an American living in Israel.” She has started a podcast, and has followings on TikTok and Instagram. She acts as a liaison between SSI and Israel so that accurate information could flow back and forth between campuses and Israel. She has begun collaborating with other political organizations on social media. We are playing a game of catch up on social media, but it’s our best tool right now and we must continue to speak up.
“Now I’m a walking ad for Israel.”
When asked what she thinks the future holds, Talia responded “Diaspora Jews, it’s time to come home.”
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