Nahanni: Hi, it’s Nahanni Rous, here with another episode of Can We Talk? First, a word from our sponsor, the University of San Francisco’s Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice. The JSSJ graduate-level certificate program in JEDI, Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, is more than an educational program: It’s a call to action to improve the future of every Jewish institution. Classes offer supportive learning that helps students navigate an evolving and challenging Jewish community landscape, providing invaluable skills, tools, and resources. Learn more and apply by January 12 for spring classes at usfca.edu/jedi.

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Nahanni: Welcome back to Can We Talk?, the podcast of the Jewish Women’s Archive, where gender history and Jewish culture meet.

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Israel has been at war with Hamas for nearly a month, and the human toll is devastating—for everyone. But when it comes to who’s making decisions about the course of the war, and who’s being sent to fight it, it’s almost all men. Men are the vast majority of soldiers on the front lines. Men fill Netanyahu’s war cabinet and governing coalition. But Israeli women are on the front lines of a major grassroots mobilization, to provide emergency relief to a country in crisis.

Lee Hoffman Agiv: We are managing and leading our community. You have women that are now in touch with every part of the authorities in their own city, and they are the one[s] connecting between all the dots.

Nahanni: Volunteers of all ages and genders are organizing clothing, food, and housing for tens of thousands of Israelis who have been displaced from their homes in the north and south of the country. Students are working with kids whose schools have been shut down, high-tech programmers are building apps to connect people for ride-sharing, home stays, food delivery, and babysitting. Therapists are traveling to meet with traumatized children, some of whom witnessed family members being murdered on October 7.

Many of these efforts have emerged from networks that originally formed to protest the Netanyahu government's proposed judicial reforms. Now, they’ve shifted gears to respond to the current crisis in Israel.

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One of these organizations is Bonot Alternativa or, Building an Alternative. It’s a feminist organization that played a central role in the protests. Last spring we spoke to one of the organization’s founders. This week, I talked with Bonot’s Field Operation Manager, Lee Hoffman Agiv. Since October 7, she has stepped away from her business in the wine industry and is spending all of her time as an activist.

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Nahanni: Can you describe what it's been like for you personally, um, starting with October 7 and then on? What has been the effect on you and your family?

Lee: On October 6, my daughters spent the night with my mother-in-law. Um, so when my girls are not with us, then we tend to sleep late, and that's what happened on that Saturday. We woke up at nine. We didn't hear anything. We didn't feel anything. I woke up at nine and I had over a thousand WhatsApp messages and unanswered calls. And I said, okay, that's not normal for a Saturday. And I just—I didn't need to read that much to understand that something very bad is going on.

I woke up at nine and at nine-thirty, I was already in a Zoom meeting talking about, “What are we going to do now?”

Nahanni: With Bonot activists?

Lee: Yeah, first with Bonot and then we started working with, uh, all the other organizations. But, I had to manage my family. Obviously, no school. And I have two young daughters that needed her parents to be—they needed their parents to be strong. And we were all in shock and very traumatized.

On Monday, I was already at a funeral of, um, my friend's son, that was a soldier. And on Thursday, I was already at a funeral of, um, a brother of one of my colleagues in the protests. She was one of the leaders of the high-tech protest and, uh, her brother was killed in one of the combats.

So very, very quickly I found myself grieving, and at the same time managing this crazy situation, and handling, um, very difficult things that normally I wouldn't handle. I mean, I'm not educated on those subjects.

Nahanni: What are some things you suddenly found yourself doing with Bonot?

Lee: For example, dealing with families of the murdered. Um, going to the funerals, going to the shiva, talking to them, making sure they have everything. I'm not a social worker, I'm not a psychologist, and I'm not a logistics center manager. And I found myself dealing with so many things and operating on so many situations that I was doing what I had to do, because I knew that I'm able to—while crying and saying, “I cannot believe that I'm doing this.”

So it was a very difficult situation for everyone. We were working while crying. You could walk around the war room and see people hugging and crying and then wiping the tears and, um, continuing doing whatever they need to do.

Nahanni: Yeah. So can you describe how the movement was able to pivot and what you suddenly found yourself involved in?

Lee: Yeah. So Bonot Alternativa is an organization that is built from many communities. During the protests, we found ourselves creating communities everywhere in Israel, from the Golan Heights in the north and all the way down to the south in Eilat.

So since we're divided [in]to communities, we are able to transform those communities from protest communities into communities that act in emergency situations.

So we—first thing we did is we changed the appearance of all of our WhatsApp groups, of our website. Everything changed immediately so that if someone needs help, they will feel comfortable to approach us, no matter what their political views are. Um, so from Bonot Alternativa, we change everything to Bonot in Emergency. We say “bonot b’cherum” —cherum is emergency.

And [we] started a war room that helps many, many types of calls for help, for all kinds, all sorts, of help. So you don't need to ship something from one side of the country to the other side of the country. If I get a call in the call center, and this call is meant for a family that is in Herzliya, for example, I can take care of it inside Herzliya, and I can connect the family that needs help to our community. So it's not only, “Oh, they need food—-Go hug them. See if they need anything else. See if we can help with anything else.”

Nahanni: So this is food, temporary housing….

Lee: A lot of connecting people to, for example, aid. You know, if someone needs mental health help, we were able to connect them. If they needed help with the authorities, we have numbers of all the social workers and welfare in all the cities. Um, if someone needed housing or diapers—or, even, for example, evacuees in the Dead Sea, they were evacuated from Ofakim, which is a city that had many killings. There was slaughter there, and so they were evacuated to the Dead Sea, and the city didn't pay the hotel. So the psychologist called us and said, “The hotel wants to evacuate them.” So we said, “Okay, we need to help them.” So we donated money.

We are working not only in the field, we are also working with all of the women's organizations to collect all the rape testimonials. Um…it's crazy. It's like, there are so many areas that are affected.

Nahanni: Do you feel like you're filling a role that the government should be, but can't or won't—or what's going on? Why is this necessary?

Lee: I think that, first of all, everyone needs to understand: This is a crazy situation. Israel is a country very accustomed to trauma, unfortunately. But, never in the history of Israel, in one day, did we have to manage this amount of casualties and injured and over 200 people kidnapped. I mean, we're talking about, I don't know, 6,000 families that are directly affected. So that’s a crazy situation.

And we knew that since we are organizations that have a lot of—like our networks are spread everywhere in Israel, and we have connections everywhere in the world—we knew that we are able to act very quickly and to do many, many things and to help to raise money and to buy equipment. And to, um, get to all of those families that need help in the community and not wait for the government.

So we will lead the women to help, to assist. But—we also have issues in this current situation that need to be taken care of, and I don't think that we will be silent for long, you know?

Nahanni: [Interjects] What are you referring to?

Lee: For example, no women in the “making decision” table. Okay, you don't have any women in the cabinet. You don't have women in the professional committees. And we know now that it's essential for women to be inside the room and to have a seat at the table, because those decisions are affecting mainly women and children.

Women stayed—most of the women stayed at home with the kids. They cannot go to work, so they might lose their job. And it's almost a month now.

Nahanni: Can you talk about the importance of women's leadership right now?

Lee: Yeah. It's very clear that women are missing in those decision making tables. You can see it in the way that we are managing and leading our community. You have women that are now in touch with every part of the authorities in their own city, and they are the ones connecting between all the dots. And if we can do it municipally—if we can do it in the local towns and cities—we for sure can do it in a national situation.

Nahanni: How many women do you think are involved right now, volunteering with Bonot?

Lee: In Bonot Alternativa we have over 100,000 women. They are in our WhatsApp groups. They are in our social media, and they are very, very responsive. And they are reading what we're sending in the newsletter, and they're responding. It's amazing to see.

And we have—we know that even not in Bonot Alternativa, you have women everywhere doing most of the work: even physical work, even volunteering and agricultural fields…helping the farmers, because there's no one to do it.

Nahanni: Because the men have been called to reserves.

Lee: Exactly. Yeah. So wherever you go, you will see mainly women.

Nahanni: What do you think is the effect of the war, in the longer term, on the pro-democracy movement?

Lee: I believe it will change its face. It's very clear that this government, um, has no future and that Bibi Netanyahu cannot stay.

I think that the debate is about the timing. Some people think that they should resign now. Some people think that it's irresponsible and that they need to resign at the end of the war. But no one knows what is the sign to end the war.

And while we're talking, we still have almost 240 kids, babies, women, men, soldiers, elderly, sick people that are kidnapped [in] Gaza.

Nahanni: And what do you hope comes next?

Lee: Hmm. That's an interesting question. I had a conversation with a friend of mine. She's from one of the kibbutzim that was mainly affected. And she said that she's taking it every day-by-day, you know? Um, but I don't have the option to not look forward and think strategy.

I hope—first, I hope that we will see more women leading the situation. I hope that this government will finish its job quickly and that we will be able to replace them. I hope that there will be no more casualties, no more killing, and I am praying for the return of our children and families and friends. Bring them home.

Nahanni: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk.

Lee: Thank you for caring and wanting to hear about it.

Nahanni: That was Lee Hoffman Agiv, the Field Operations Manager of Bonot Alternativa, one of the organizations coordinating relief and recovery for Israelis affected by the October 7 attacks.

If you are interested in making a donation to recovery efforts in Israel through Bonot Alternativa, visit bonot.org/aid. That’s b-o-n-o-t dot org slash a-i-d.

Thank you for joining us for Can We Talk? the podcast of the Jewish Women’s Archive. Our team includes Jen Richler and Judith Rosenbaum. Our theme music is by Girls In Trouble. Find us online at jwa.org/canwetalk or anywhere you get your podcasts.

I’m Nahanni Rous. Until next time.