Israeli expats are becoming Diaspora Jews

An Israeli woman living in Berlin recently joined an "Israelis for Peace" protest outside the German Foreign Ministry opposing arms sales to Israel and calling for an end to the war in Gaza.

Her friends in Israel considered her protest a betrayal. They used social media to try to bring her into line, tagging her on a video of the protest and sharing their criticisms on Instagram.

The October 7 massacre and the ensuing bloody war have created a profound divide between Israelis at home and Israeli expats. Maybe Israeli expats are beginning to identify more with Diaspora Jews. Or perhaps we are simply growing apart from Israelis back home.

Or maybe it is because it has become harder to visit our families in Israel. But there seems to be a growing divide, almost a wall, between those here and those living there, who still mostly support the war. 

The accusations from Israel are sometimes almost absurd. Another woman I know, a musician who now lives in London, had family members kidnapped on October 7 and taken to Gaza. While one of her relatives has since returned, the other member remains in captivity. The musician created a powerful piece of classical music that was accompanied by footage from both Israel and war-torn Gaza.

When she shared it on social media, she received a huge number of negative comments. And when the woman who joined Israelis for Peace in Berlin shared this video on her social media, she got a message, saying: "Oh, so you're now with Hamas." She responded in disbelief, saying, "What? Hamas kidnapped her family! What are you talking about?" It is as if empathy had been lost from the Israeli lexicon.

The woman’s husband, who left Israel 13 years ago for Berlin, now says that October 7 marked a turning point for him. Since then, he has lived in constant fear, questioning whether it is safe to read or speak Hebrew in public, even with his daughter.

The war has also changed the couple’s relationship. She has joined a women's group focused on the Middle East conflict as well attending the Friday demonstrations. He finds himself accompanying her, despite sometimes experiencing panic attacks during the protests. Her activism has made him more political as well. He feels more critical about the politics of his country of origin than ever before.

The husband, who is a friend of mine, believes that the ideology of settlers has now become mainstream in Israel. And he thinks the divide between the Diaspora and Israelis has arisen for understandable reasons.

From abroad, he feels he has a clearer view of the war's flaws, particularly how the deaths of innocent Palestinians, bombed by Israeli fighter jets in Gaza, are rarely discussed in Israel. He is horrified by the number of Palestinian casualties, as are many people from afar. And he is deeply troubled by the support being given to such an extreme Israeli government.

The husband hasn’t visited Israel since October 7. He tells me that he recently received free air tickets from his wife’s family for them to finally come. But they turned them down. They’re worried about what might happen to their little daughter — and not just because of the threat of war.

They are worried that she will be brainwashed. He feels that everyone in Israel is brainwashed. In particular, he believes the Israeli media betrayed its role as the guardian of democracy and has not reflected the suffering of the Gaza people.

When their relatives visited Berlin, he was struck by the way they talked about Gaza: "Oh, it's so dirty, it's like Gaza," they said. Something seems to have changed in the Israeli language too.

My friend said he doesn’t want his child to grow up with so much ignorance and hate. So they added a physical wall to the already existing wall — a wall that exists in the media and in every aspect of life. He explained that he has witnessed many of his friends facing a backlash after expressing empathy for the suffering in Gaza. He has also experienced this himself.

Israelis are labelling those who show empathy for the situation in Gaza as "crazy" and are cursing them. Even my friend’s nephews are sharing the ultra-nationalist (Meir) Kahane Movement's material on social media. And he knows the Kahanist movement targets the remains of the left wing, tags them as “traitors” and hunts them. His is afraid that the Israeli humanistic camp in Israel will flee like it did in Iran after the revolution.

But are we really building a different or new camp, I ask him.  He says he finds it difficult to connect with other diasporic groups.  Maybe it is not a rise in collective diasporic consciousness, maybe the pain of witnessing this horrific war only isolates us further, also from each other.

We confide in each other but we are more careful about sharing our full opinions about the war on social media, so as to maintain relations with our family members. We are not really building a new camp or wall. But the divide is growing anyway.