NOT READY TO DIE IN YOUR WAR
“NOT READY TO DIE IN YOUR WAR”
On August 2012, while the voice and calls of war became louder and louder, Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir uploaded a new poster with a new message:
We are millions of people who will be hurt. Will be drafted, will have to fight, lose our lives, our relatives. We, parents from Tel Aviv and Teheran, will have to run with our children to the shelters and pray the missiles will miss us. But they will fall somewhere, on someone. Those last few days the sound of war is becoming louder. So once again, load and clear, we are saying – NO to this war, We are saying to the people of Iran: We Love You”
ONCE AGAIN, WITHIN HOURS
The page received thousands of Likes and supporting comments. Hundreds of people from all over the world started sending their pictures with the same message.
In the first campaign, Iranians living in Iran were afraid to reveal themselves.
Not this time!
They posted their photos with this same loving message,
confidently facing the camera, stating their names, and even the city they live in.
When I was 7, My mother gathered all that was left from our family’s jewels and bribed a german lady to smuggle me out of the ghetto. “I will follow you” my mother promised.
I was smuggled out inside a wooden closet.
I never saw my mother again.
I was totally alone, moving from a shelter to an orphanage, from a brothel to a monastery…
I didn’t trust People
I valued my life according to four principles; food, clothes, heat and a roof over my head.
Before the war I had a happy childhood. We lived near Krakow.
I remember my Mother’s meticulous care for our home.
War started when i was four and I quickly learned the difference between fear and anxiety.
Fear is specific. It’s the fear of the dark at the hole my father dig in the ground to hide us, like the fear of roaring german dogs, the fear from the sound of the leather whip lashing.
Anxiety is something you can’t put in words but holds you by the throat, it’s like always feeling cold to the bone, like a heavy cloud upon your very own existence.
I don’t remember when I lost my brother Ben-Zion.
I was holding his hand In one of these “actions”, as the nazis were gathering all the ghetto population in order to decide who is work-worthy and who is worthless.
the german officer was sitting, pointing his stick at people
-left
-right
my mother ordered us to go hide
-hold-on your brother, go, go
an officer caught us and brought us back to the gathering place
it was mayhem, the shouting from german soldiers, the crying of people for their faith, for their children’s faith.
I don’t remember when or where my hand slipped from it’s grabbing
i don’t remember when i lost my brother Ben-Zion. I lost him forever.
I lost all my family at the holocaust. Everybody. For years i’ve cried for being an Orphan but today…, i cry for my parents, for what they had to go through
for the sacrifice they made for me.
Today i’m still afraid of dogs
when one is passing by, I have my grandchildren holding my hands
Today, whenever I hear someone talking about the annihilation of Israel, I get this feeling that you can’t put in words but holds you by your throat.
–Zahava, 80, Petah Tikva, ISRAEL
PEACE it’s VIRAL
PEACE starts with the people, one person at a time. Today it’s easier than ever to connect and reach out to one another. We can talk, we can meet, and we can start a new friendship without even leaving our homes just by the click of a button. One new person, One new connection. Peace is when we see and treat each other as people. All we have to do is talk.