Displaced by the War in Israel in 2023

Hello, it’s been so long since I’ve spoken to many of you. Some of you may remember that in 2015 I started a unique adventure. I reconnected with and subsequently married my first love, Mor. We met in Israel in 1992 and fell in love at 16. In 2014, we reconnected (after 23 years apart). In 2015, we married, I made Aliyah and we moved to her home country of Israel. These last eight+ years have been an amazing, challenging journey. We became kibbutz members, bought our first home, and welcomed our son Daniel into the world in 2018.

The morning of October 7th started like many others. As our day unfolded, we all realized the magnitude of what was happening. I think many Israelis, like me, could recognize that this was an attack, of scale and magnitude that many Israelis believed could never happen. The murder of hundreds, then thousands of innocents. Babies, women, children, and families were murdered. Families just like mine, living on Kibbutzim just like us. As our hearts broke, and we cried for the brutally slaughtered, we were hit with the realization, we could be next.

We are one of the lucky families. Because of my American citizenship, Daniel’s American citizenship, and our preparation to ensure Mor’s visa was current, we found a way out.

However, this was not a decision we came to easily. Leaving our family, friends, pets, and our home, representing a lifetime of work has been devastating. We’re not sure what our future holds or when we’ll be able to return. Thankfully, we arrived in NYC, safely at the end of October.

Our livelihoods lost, and now without a home, we recognize and are not too proud, or ashamed to ask for help. So, we are asking for any financial help you can provide at this time.

Any money that can be raised will first go to our expenses while we try to create some stability for Daniel and figure out what we do next. But, we’ve been thinking these days about other ways to continue to support our community. Anything we can raise beyond our expenses we plan to send back to Israel. Starting in our local community, Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan, and then expanding as far and as wide across Israel as possible. The outpouring of support and strength shown by my community and Israel as a whole has been inspiring and beautiful. Many families, including ours, have participated in preparing food & snacks daily, providing transportation or laundry services, and providing families and people in need with warm showers or a place to stay in their homes. Many of the families who are helping are paying for everything out of pocket. Even as many of them, like us, have lost their employment. As well, there are many people with special needs, older people, or people with few options for escape, or need help finding alternate housing if escape is impossible that we would like to try to help. Any help you can provide could have a direct impact on the ground, in Israel, helping families just like mine.

The last two weeks have been some of the hardest and scariest of our lives. Our home on Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan is in the very north of Israel, between the Lebanese and Syrian borders.

We are about 7 miles from Lebanon, and a bit more from Syria. Day by day things intensified. Rocket attacks, mortars, missiles, and attempted infiltrations. Road closures daily and as we were readying to leave a forced evacuation of the only “city” within a 40-minute drive. We struggled to create some sense of normalcy for Daniel. To protect him from needing to understand anything about war at 5 years old, something no parent should have to do.

Our hearts break for the families on BOTH sides, who have lost so much. As a father, seeing the devastation in Gaza, the families losing everything including their lives, because of Hamas’s hatred and genocidal mission is a tragedy. But the fact remains, evil, like this must be stopped, end of sentence.

Thank you for reading, please share this with anyone you think might want to help.

Thank you for helping if you can, and even if you can’t, please stand with us in this moment. There is no justification for this. What happened on October 7 was not about resistance. Don’t be fooled by Hamas propaganda, there is NEVER a justification for rape and murder. For Killing grandmothers and grandfathers, kidnapping infants, and children, and murdering hundreds at a peace festival. I’ve been disgusted by the response of some of the so-called progressive organizations on college campuses and universities throughout America. Celebrating this holocaust, as some kind of righteous blow for the oppressed. Don’t be afraid to fight back against this disgusting opinion. Don’t be afraid to stand up and say no one deserves this. How can you demand justice for Palestine yet celebrate the gruesome deaths of other humans? Don’t be afraid to stand up and SHOUT! All of humanity deserve peace and dignity, that includes Palestinians. But it also includes Jews and Israelis. You only stand up for some, if you don’t stand up for all. Peace in the Middle East, for all.

With all love and respect;

Daniel, Mor and Raphael Montiero