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Prize-winning journalist Amir Tibon is moving back to the kibbutz where he and his family survived Oct. 7
(JTA) — “To be a liberal Zionist, it’s quite a lonely place,” said Amir Tibon, the Israeli journalist whose memoir “The Gates of Gaza” is one of the defining books of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.
“Lonely” is relative, of course. Tibon’s story of how he, his wife Miri and their young daughters hunkered in a safe room as Hamas gunmen overran their kibbutz in southern Israel, and how his parents — Maj. Gen. (ret.) Noam Tivon and Dr. Gali Mir-Tibon — rushed into the war zone on a mission to save them, has made him one of the best-known survivors of the carnage.
In an interview, he described the outpouring of support his family received from fellow Israelis and American Jews, and the letters he gets weekly from people inspired by his book.
But Tibon, the opinion editor for the left-wing Israeli daily Haaretz, was speaking about a political reality. In the 33 months since Oct. 7, Israeli society has moved to the right, while the global left has turned Israel, its government, its people and its supporters into pariahs. That makes Tibon an inconvenient figure in both camps: too left for the Zionists, too Zionist for the left, and an eyewitness to events — acts of butchery on one side, security lapses on the other — that both would rather forget.
Meanwhile, even as he feels like a beleaguered minority, he remains committed to a vision of coexistence. “The one thing that is not changing: In this land, you have about 50% Palestinians or Arabs — some of them civilian citizens of Israel — and 50% Jews,” he said. “What do we do? How do we live together in this land? I think that question is not going anywhere.”
On July 28, at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, Tibon will receive the 2026 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for his memoir, subtitled “A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel’s Borderlands.” The $100,000 award, established 20 years ago by the family of the late American real estate developer, philanthropist and Holocaust survivor, is presented annually to an emerging author “who demonstrates the potential to make ongoing contributions to Jewish literature.”
In “The Gates of Gaza,” published in the fall of 2024, Tibon weaves his family’s rescue story with a wider history of Kibbutz Nahal Oz and the Gaza border communities and an account of the intelligence and policy failures that left them undefended. The book has also won the National Jewish Book Award, the Wingate Prize and the Bernstein Prize, and has been translated into Hebrew, German, French, Romanian, Italian and Hungarian, with a Spanish edition on the way.
The Rohr prize, Tibon said, arrives at a moment when he feels a duty to keep Oct. 7 in view. “It means that we are not forgetting Oct. 7,” he said of the prize. “We are not allowing anyone to minimize, deny, justify or otherwise just ignore that day and its place in history. There are very powerful forces that are trying to shift the conversation away from that day for various reasons. And by choosing this book, I think the judging panel is doing the opposite: It’s once again putting a spotlight on that day, and on everything that has changed because of it.
Since the attack, Tibon and his family have lived as evacuees in Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek in northern Israel. In August, nearly three years after the invasion, they and other evacuees plan to move back home to Nahal Oz and join those who have already come back. Fifteen civilians from the kibbutz were killed on Oct. 7, and eight were taken to Gaza as hostages. More than 50 Israeli soldiers and security personnel were killed in the battle for the kibbutz and at the adjacent army base.
The return, he said, is “still a difficult, complicated situation on many levels — security, resources and just kind of the mental part of it.”
Counting his family, roughly two-thirds of the community who lived there before the attacks will soon be living there.
“I’m not sure everybody who is returning is definitely going to stay,” he said. “I think this is a test we still have to see — how is life going to look for families, what’s going to be the security situation, how much the education and health care and transportation and other government services are going to be high quality. These are all open questions. But we’ll see about all of these things.”
His daughters, Galia, 6, and Carmel, four and a half, have absorbed more in the last three years than any child should. “The kids here grow up too fast,” he said. “They understand a lot of what has happened — Oct. 7, the war with Gaza, the experience of having to leave your home, and then the subsequent Hezbollah and Iran wars. Unfortunately they understand pretty much everything.”
Between the book and a 2025 documentary based on his story, “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” Tibon has become one of the most recognizable faces of Oct. 7 — a status he wears uneasily.
“I don’t see myself as a spokesperson for anyone,” he said, pointing to others whose books have resonated widely, including the former hostage Eli Sharabi and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Her son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was abducted by Hamas from the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7. Hersh was slain by his captors after surviving for nearly 11 months in captivity.
Even within his own tiny community, Tibon said, “every story is different.” Nahal Oz has 450 residents. “Each family has its own story from that day.”
But the reception for the book means he has had an impact on how people remember and discuss Oct. 7.”Tens of thousands of people around the world have read this book,” he said, and he still hears from readers weekly. “Most of them are very supportive and uplifting, but there’s also criticism, and I’m happy for that as well.”
Some of that criticism comes from the left, from those who feel his story of Israeli suffering crowds out attention that should be focused on the tens of thousands of Gazans killed in the war and the million-plus who have been displaced. Tibon doesn’t flinch from the argument that the war has been catastrophic for Palestinians — he has said so in print, repeatedly. And he remains a harsh critic of the Netanyahu government, which he feels has extended the war in part to keep its hold on power.
But he insists that Hamas’ culpability for all that followed cannot be erased: “This war never would have started without Oct. 7. That’s just a fact,” he said. “And that day, it was a catastrophe for Israelis, and it was just as much a calamity for the Palestinians.”
Tibon said he is less worried about the activist left’s hostility toward Israel than he is about the mainstream turn in U.S. public opinion. “Today 60% of Americans have a negative view of the country,” he said, “and nobody is going to convince me that 60% of Americans is antisemitic and supports BDS.”
The Netanyahu government, he said, has been “a godsend, a gift from the heavens, for the far left in America,” which prefers to point to Netanyahu and his far-right ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, rather than Israelis like Tibon’s family and the other residents of Nahal Oz who still yearn for peace.
But he warns fellow supporters of Israel against making the opposite mistake, and defending the Israeli government from justified criticism. “If you’re saying Netanyahu is immune from criticism and cannot be separated from Israel, you just made Zohran Mamdani’s day,” he said, referring to the anti-Israel New York City mayor.
Tibon is blunt about what he sees as an Israeli government strategy of trying to move on from Oct. 7. “The government would very much like to erase Oct. 7 from public memory,” he said, “or at least to frame it in terms that are very favorable for them, and make it smaller than the war writ large.”
Given the security failures on that day, Tibon remains flabbergasted that Netanyahu’s government has survived the almost three years since.
He argues Israel abandoned its founding doctrine of short, decisive wars for long, inconclusive ones in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran that served the coalition’s survival more than the country’s security: “They did not defeat Hamas. They did not defeat Hezbollah. They did not defeat Iran. But they managed to survive a full term,” he said.
Not everyone who lived through what Tibon’s family did has landed where he has politically. But while acknowledging the sharp political shift to the right in Israel since Oct. 7, he says it’s not just the left that remains “disgusted” with the government. Friends across the spectrum who served hundreds of days in reserve duty are appalled, for example, by legislation sheltering approximately 72,000 haredi Orthodox yeshiva students from the draft.
That contradiction, he said, is why figures like Avigdor Liberman, Naftali Bennett and Gadi Eisenkot — politicians critical of Netanyahu but hardly doves — are “ascendant right now.”
Asked if he’s changed his own mind about anything since Oct. 7, Tibon didn’t hesitate: “I’ve become more pessimistic.” Then, he catches himself. “If we succumb to total pessimism, then what’s the point of being here at all?”
If there is hope, he said, it has come from community, family and routine. He calls Mishmar HaEmek “a wonderful kibbutz” that “opened their hearts and their home.” Miri resumed her work with autistic children, now in Afula, a city in northern Israel. He went back to Haaretz and wrote the book. “It gives you a sense of purpose and meaning and something to get up for in the morning,” he said. He has also found purpose over the past three years in visiting the families of soldiers who died defending Nahal Oz or fell later in Gaza or Lebanon — “many dozens” by now. “I keep in touch with many of them,” he said. “There is no release from this.”
He is also grateful to the American Jewish organizations and synagogues, many from the Washington, D.C.-area where he and Miri once lived, for an outpouring of support that began on Oct. 8 and hasn’t let up.
“I also find a lot of reasons for hope within my own family — to see my daughters, how they’re growing and overcoming this trauma and becoming independent and strong every day — and to see my community, the people of Nahal Oz, who are doing a little bit every day to make things better and to overcome what happened.
“And I want to be optimistic that just as we are able to rebuild Nahal Oz now, and rebuild our life over there, we will also rebuild the country and put it on the right track.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Emil Kalin wins Mendele Prize for Yiddish Literature 2026
דער תּּל-אָבֿיבֿער שטאָטראַט האָט די וואָך אַנאָנסירט, אַז דער ייִדישער שרײַבער עמיל קאַלין האָט זוכה געווען צו באַקומען דעם מענדעלע-פּּריז פֿאַר ייִדישער ליטעראַטור. דעם פּרײַז טיילט די שטאָט אויס יעדע פֿיר יאָר פֿאַר בעלעטריסטיק, ליטעראַטור־קריטיק אָדער אַנדערע בײַטראָגן צו דער ייִדיש־ליטעראַטור.
דעם פּריז האָט מען אים געגעבן אין שײַכות מיט זײַן לעצטן ראָמאַן, „צוזאַמענבראָך“ (2025), וועגן אַ געוועזענעם חרדישן ייִד פֿון ירושלים, וואָס פֿאַרלאָזט זײַן פֿרוי און קינד און לאָזט זיך גיין אויף אַ קאָמפּליצירטן גײַסטיקן דרך. דאָס בוך איז דערשינען אין פֿאַרלאַג ייִדיש-בראַנזשע און לייוויק-פֿאַרלאַג, מיט דער שטיצע פֿון דער „נאַציאָנאַלער אינסטאַנץ פֿאַר ייִדישער קולטור“. מע קאָן עס קויפן דורך leyvik.org.
נישט לאַנג נאָך דער פּובליקאַציע פֿונעם ראָמאַן האָט דער פֿאָרווערטס־רעצענזענט מיכאל קרוטיקאָוו געשריבן וועגן דעם בוך, און בפֿרט וועגן דעם הויפּט־פּערסאָנאַזש, הערש, אַזוי:
קאַלין שילדערט סײַ מענטשן און סײַ לאַנדשאַפֿטן אָן קײן שום באַפּוצונג. ער איז אַ מײַסטער פֿון מעטאַפֿאָרישן אימאַזש, װאָס שאַפֿט אַ געהעריקע שטימונג. די שטאָט תּל־אָבֿיבֿ איז אַ מין לעבעדיקע, פֿיבערדיקע חיה, װאָס כאַפּט הערשן פֿעסט אַרום „מיט בײדע שװיציקע הענט.“ די אױטאָבוסן זײַנען „אומגעלומפּערטע יבשה־שיפֿן, װאָס שנײַדן זיך קױם דורך אַ װעג אין דער ברױזנדיקער באַװעגונג.“ ער אַנטלױפֿט קײן ירושלים מיט אַ האָפֿענונג, „אַז ירושלים װעט מיך דערהײבן מיט זיך, אָבער דאָס פֿאַרקערטע איז געשען: ירושלים האָט מיך דערנידערט, אַראָפּגעשלעפּט מיט זיך אין בלאָטע.״
די דרײַ ריכטער פֿונעם פּריז־קאָמיטעט — דבֿ־בער קאָטלערמאַן, דניאל גלאַי און נירה תּובֿל — האָבן געזאָגט, אַז קאַלינס בוך איז נישט בלויז זייער גוט געשריבן, נאָר איז אויך איינער פֿון די גאָר ווייניק מאָדערנע ראָמאַנען אויף ייִדיש, וואָס באַהאַנדלען טעמעס פֿון דער הײַנטיקער ישׂראלדיקער געזעלשאַפֿט.
אַחוץ „צוזאַמענבראָך“ האָט קאַלין אַרויסגעגעבן צוויי אַנדערע ראָמאַנען, און הײַיאָר וועט דערשײַנען זײַן פֿערטער. די אויסטיילונג וועט פֿאָרקומען דעם 1טן דעצעמבער 2026 אין עינבֿ-זאַל, וווּ עס וועט אויך בײַזײַן דער תּל-אָבֿיבֿער בירגער-מײַסטער רון חולדאי.
עמיל קאַלין איז געבוירן געוואָרן אין 1982 אין בוקאַרעשט, און האָט מיט זײַן משפּחה עולה געווען קיין ישׂראל אין עלטער פֿון 7 יאָר.
ער האָט פֿאַרענדיקט זײַנע הויכע לימודים אינעם העברעיִשן אוניווערסיטעט אין ירושלים, און האָט לאַנגע יאָרן געאַרבעט אין הײַטעק. הײַנט לערנט ער פּסיכאָלאָגיע אינעם תּל-אָבֿיבֿער אוניווערסיטעט.
קאַלין האָט אויך איבערגעזעצט אויף ייִדיש דאָס דײַטשישע בוך „דער גאַנג פֿון די הינט“, וואָס איז אַרויס דורכן פֿאַרלאַג „אָלניאַנסקי טעקסט“. זײַנע אַנדערע ביכער זײַנען אַרויס דורך די פֿאַרלאַגן „ייִדיש בראַנזשע“ און „ה. לייוויק“.
זײַנע קירצערע ווערק קען מען לייענען אינעם דיגיטאַלישן זשורנאַל „ייִדיש בראַנזשע“, רעדאַקטירט פֿון באָריס סאַנדלער.
אין יאָר 2025 איז ער פֿאַרבעטן געוואָרן אויף אַ טור אין אַכט שטעט אין דײַטשלאַנד, כּדי פֿאָרצושטעלן דאָס בוך „צוזאַמענברוך“.
ער וווינט אין תּל־אָבֿיבֿ מיט זײַן פֿרוי שבֿע כּהן און זייערע דרײַ קינדער.
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Brussels Airlines workers threaten strike over flights to Israel, citing ethical objections
(JTA) — A Belgian union has threatened to strike against Brussels Airlines for compelling staff to work on flights to Israel, saying that anyone with “safety or conscientious objections” should be able to refuse.
ACV Puls, Belgium’s largest trade union, said on Tuesday that the company was breaking previous agreements to rely on volunteers for flights to Tel Aviv. The airline resumed flights to Tel Aviv on August 3, following a five-month pause because of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, and its first flights were operated with volunteers.
“Serious concerns exist among the staff regarding both physical safety and the mental and ethical impact of these flights,” ACV Puls spokesperson Jolinde Defieuw said in a statement. She added that making staffing mandatory was “particularly serious in the context of the ongoing war and the genocide in Gaza.”
ACV Puls, which represents aviation employees including pilots, cabin crews and ground staff in Belgium, said that a strike could follow if Brussels Airlines does not reverse its decision to resume regular staffing. The union argued that flying to Israel could not be deemed sufficiently safe, citing Belgium’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which advises against “all non-essential travel to Israel and Jerusalem.”
They also said that workers should be able to decline the flights for ethical reasons. Those who have “safety or conscientious objections must be able to refuse these flights without financial, professional, or disciplinary consequences,” said the union.
Nico Cardone, a spokesperson for Brussels Airlines, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that safety was the company’s “highest priority, whether we operate with volunteers or not.” He added that the airline was “not a political party” and made decisions about flight operations based on safety and demand.
“We do not engage in political discussions about the governments of certain destinations, and we ask our staff to uphold this same professional standard,” said Cardone.
ACV Puls said the airline was compelling crews to work because it had not found enough volunteers. Cardone disputed that, saying the airline always aimed to return to regular crew scheduling over time.
Along with threatening a strike, the union called on the Belgian government to weigh in. ACV Puls said the government should take a stance on the availability of commercial flights to Israel “despite the ongoing war, the massive civilian casualties, and the serious accusations of war crimes and human rights violations against the Palestinian population.”
Belgium has grown increasingly critical of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and Israeli settlements in the West Bank since 2023. Earlier this year, Belgium banned aircraft carrying military equipment bound for Israel from crossing its airspace. The government in July approved a ban on goods imported from Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Haiti saved Jewish lives then. Our silence is not an option now.
In the late 1930s, as Nazi Germany intensified its persecution of Jewish people and the warning signs of a far darker future became increasingly clear, Jewish families searched desperately for countries willing to receive them. While many nations turned their backs, Haiti did not. It issued life-saving visas and offered them safe haven.
Nearly 90 years later, history has come full circle.
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians who have lived and worked lawfully in the United States under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) now face forcible deportation to a country engulfed in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
This moment is deeply personal.
My mother survived a Nazi forced-labor camp, where she was forced to manufacture explosives. My father and three of his nephews survived Auschwitz. The rest of my family perished. I grew up with that history and with a profound awareness of what it means to be uprooted, persecuted and abandoned by the world.
That history shaped not only who I am, but the course of my life. I began my career as an art historian, but eventually felt called toward a different path: working alongside communities confronting abject poverty, famine, conflict and disaster.
My humanitarian career began in 1988 at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), under the mentorship of Aryeh Cooperstock, who in the spirit of Tikkun Olam – repairing the world – led JDC’s international development work with non-Jewish communities around the globe. Aryeh fundamentally influenced my professional practice by instilling the conviction that true development starts with humility and listening to local partners who know their own challenges best.
While at JDC, its archive revealed a truth I never forgot. In the late 1930s, Haiti said yes to desperate Jewish refugees while bigger nations said no. My family wasn’t among those saved, but the grace of that gesture stayed with me forever.
Thus, in 2009, after working extensively across 24 countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and South America, I founded EcoWorks International to work in Haiti, as an enduring expression of profound gratitude.
For the past 17 years, we have worked shoulder-to-shoulder with Haitian professionals and communities in a broad range of sectors. Following the devastating 2010 earthquake, and with a generous grant from JDC, we built and equipped a physical rehabilitation center at Bernard Mevs Hospital, Haiti’s leading trauma center, restoring mobility and hope to thousands of victims.
Near the capital of Port-Au-Prince, we helped local farmers establish the first regional agricultural cooperatives that they own and manage.
After the 2021 earthquake, we worked with coastal fishing communities to rebuild the underwater systems that their livelihoods depend on. Today, in Haiti’s northern region, we work with 2,500 rice farmers to adopt a sustainable farming method that uses significantly less water, relies on organic fertilizer, and can nearly double yields.
Yet, in nearly two decades of standing with Haiti through natural disasters and socio-political upheaval, I have never witnessed such a level of unchecked violence, widespread displacement, and profound despair as now.
Armed gangs control almost all of Port-au-Prince, key regions, and major transit routes. Murder, kidnapping, rape, extortion and arson are daily instruments of terror. More than 1.5 million people are displaced and 5.7 million face severe hunger. Hospitals and clinics have been attacked, burned or forced to close.
Recently, Bernard Mevs Hospital, where we worked following the earthquake, was attacked and burned. In Ganthier, where our organization worked for years, the 400 Mawozo gang drove some 20,000 people from their homes. Their victims now live homeless and in hiding and our friends, partners and colleagues are still unable to return.
Today, Haiti has not one elected official. Basic institutions and services have collapsed. Parents struggle to feed their children. Pregnant women may have nowhere to give birth safely. Simply traveling to work, school, a market, or a hospital puts people at risk of kidnapping, rape or death.
This is the abyss to which some 350,000 Haitians in the United States now face forcible deportation, a process that has already begun.
The Haitians who lost their TPS are our neighbors, coworkers, healthcare professionals, teachers, business owners, taxpayers and friends. They built dignified lives and raised families here under a legal humanitarian program created to protect people from precisely the nightmare Haiti is experiencing today.
As we approach the High Holidays, a sacred season of Cheshbon HaNefesh, a call to reflection and duty, moral fortitude and a choice of who we choose to be, we are commanded not to stand idly by while our neighbors suffer.
In the past Haiti chose compassion over indifference toward the Jewish people. Today, the moral choice is ours. Write to your senators and representatives demanding the extension of TPS for Haitian people. Ask your rabbi, synagogue, Jewish Federation, and community leaders to issue public statements and take action. Share Haiti’s historical connection to our people.
Yesterday, Haiti opened its doors to save Jewish lives. Today, Haitians desperately need our voices. May history remember that when they needed us most, we did not remain silent.
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