Help Safaa and Her Family Survive in Gaza

My Teacher and Friend Safaa

I am a Jewish-American who is deeply connected to the lands of Israel and Palestine and the people who reside there. I dream of a world in which Palestinian and Israeli (Jew and Arab) people alike can live in dignity and peace, but that world sadly remains beyond reach. The words on this page, however, are about a young Palestinian woman from Gaza City who entered my life recently as an Arabic teacher. I have studied conversational Hebrew for the last three and a half years and conversational Arabic for the last six months. Several months ago, in my search for an Arabic teacher, I utilized an app that matches students and teachers from around the world to study just about any language.

I found an Arabic teacher named Safaa. Safaa is a twenty-four-year-old woman who graduated with a degree in English from a university in Gaza during the summer of 2023. She is married, lives in Gaza City with her family, and has a husband and a four-month-old daughter named Lana. Since October 2023, they have been without water and electricity due to the conflict between Hamas and Israel that began on October 7, 2023. The homes of her birth family have been reduced to rubble. Food is scarce, nutritious food even scarcer. Hunger abounds.

I generally don’t get to see Safaa on our Zoom lessons. I only hear her voice. She has told me that is due to bandwidth issues, but Safaa is a proud young woman, and I suspect she does not wish to share her surroundings. I do not actually know if the house of her in-laws, with whom she now lives, is fully intact or the extent of the damage to their home. During our thrice-weekly classes, I often hear her young daughter crying or playing in the background, along with street noise, and the always-present sound of Israeli military drones overhead. Those sounds stay with me well after my sessions with Safaa. They haunt me.

Safaa is a patient and kind young woman and an excellent Arabic teacher who tolerates my frequent mistakes and encourages my periodic successes. We laugh at my errors and, on occasion, Safaa shows a little frustration with my lack of focus. Justifiably, I should add. We aim for and achieve normalcy in the most unusual of circumstances. My choice of Safaa as a teacher was admittedly influenced by her location in Gaza, thinking it might have a beneficial impact on her life. And she was highly rated as a teacher. I was also, quite candidly, curious and intrigued. My Arabic learning journey with Safaa has turned out to be about far more than just learning a language. It has become as much, if not more, about developing a human, mutually respectful connection with a young woman who is living under unimaginable conditions.

I continue to learn Arabic with Safaa. And, our connection deepens, class by class. Safaa has, on occasion, missed several classes unexpectedly, often (I find out later) due to internet loss. Each absence worries me, especially considering the ever-present violence and death in Gaza, often involving civilian women and children. These absences trigger complex emotions in me each time.

Safaa and her family are flesh and blood, like my own. Yet, her suffering and the suffering of over two million humans in Gaza are not supposed to be my concern. I’m not supposed to look at the pictures of the innocent dead women and children in Gaza. For most, Safaa and her family are either invisible or deserving of whatever fate befalls them. I refuse the emotional safety of not knowing. I reject the notion that Palestinians like Safaa and her family, and the two million plus Gazans that I do not know, are any less human than my own family and those of my friends, Jewish and non-Jewish. Yet, the unconscionable carnage that is being inflicted on the people of Gaza continues.

There is so little I can do to help. Safaa and her family are beyond my reach, except for what she gets in return for my Arabic lessons. Weeks have passed since I first put these words to paper. The killing continues unabated, the food situation grows worse, the world on occasion raises a tepid voice, condemnation too slowly grows, but all to what end for Safaa and those she loves? Death and hunger are the only guarantees in her present.

This moment in Israel/Palestine is arguably the least hopeful in my lifetime. It is difficult to envision a hopeful future for Safaa and her family. Still, I am determined to continue my learning with her and, perhaps, to even find a way to make a small positive difference in the life of Safaa and her family. Hopelessness need not be an insurmountable obstacle to hope. As Safaa says at the end of each class, inshallah (God willing), until next time. So, I pray there is a next time.

And I now also ask for your help for Safaa and her family by asking you to contribute what you can through the GoFundMe account I have set up on her and her family’s behalf.

I also want to share the words of Safaa who wanted to speak to each of you regarding her current life:

Alsalam Alikom everyone, my name is Safaa Al Madhoun, an Arabic language teacher from Gaza City. My student Rick, who is 66 years old, is American and has been living there since we met. He is helping me by publishing my story to you and my difficult situation that I live with my family in the Gaza Strip from bombing and war for more than a year and a half of painful conditions with a lack of food, drink, basic necessities of life and electricity. We are suffering a lot here, me, my little daughter and my husband, Mustafa, from these conditions and the widespread hunger in the last period with the high prices and the high commission, as a bag of flour for baking costs us over $300 and many other expensive things. We are still living a difficult life full of terror, hunger and lack of peace. During my lessons with Rick, he always asked me about my condition and my difficult situation when he heard the sound of planes around me and ambulances, as how can I study Arabic despite the unstable conditions here in Gaza, but what I answered him was that we must live and move forward despite the pain we are living and I hope that everyone will help me so that I and my family can live despite the difficult circumstances and high prices, thank you for supporting me and my family.

Rick Shapiro is a retired public affairs professional who lives in Oakley, Utah