The next victim could be you! (It was me)

I was robbed at knifepoint earlier this week in my own home in Kibbutz Hannaton in the pastoral Galilee – three houses away from Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Shikli, who was surrounded by armed security guards paid for with my tax money, while I was trying to use my wits to escape rape and murder. These are the same security guards who call the police each time I protest in front of Shikli’s house – the very police officers who have detained me six times since September for trying to protect my and their democratic rights. 

It was those same police officers who showed up at my home after I managed to get the two burglars out by giving them my wedding ring and making them promise they would then leave and not come back. 

“Well, hello,” I said to the police when they walked through my front door, after I had composed myself from breaking down in tears when the head of kibbutz security arrived. “Now you finally have some real work to do, real criminals to arrest.” They understood what I meant, and I like to think they even felt a bit sorry.

Ironically, this all happened the night after the big Tel Aviv Saturday night joint Arab-Jewish protest against the epidemic level of organized crime in this country – especially in the Arab towns and cities around my kibbutz – and the government’s willful negligence around it. This is a protest I had attended with much enthusiasm.

After being active on this issue for years – especially the past few years since this government came into power and cut the programs (that the Bennet-Lapid government had created) intended to end this crisis – I was delighted and relieved to see massive grassroots organizing finally happening as a result of Sakhnin resident Ali Zabidat’s brave act of defiance, when he closed down his stores in refusal to pay protection money.

The organized crime had become so extreme at that point, that the 27th homicide of 2026 was announced as January came to a close and we were marching in Tel Aviv. Now, less than a week later, we are at #37.

Most of these murders happen in the Arab towns and cities around my pastoral kibbutz — Nazareth, Shefa-Amr, Bir al Maksur, Arabe, Ibillin… I had been advertising these murders daily, in the Hannaton WhatsApp group, as they occurred – often receiving reactions like, “What does this have to do with us?” and, “That won’t ever happen here.”

Those reactions were upsetting enough, for the mere bigotry and insensitivity of them; my heart broke again and again each time I read about another person killed, another family shattered. My friends living in these towns and cities told me how their children were afraid to go outside, how each time my friends heard a gun shot they checked in with all their family members to see if everyone was alive. 

But these reactions of Hannaton residents were also delusional; I tried to explain to those who reacted so callously and unrealistically that violence in the surrounding towns would surely cross through our yellow gate as well one day, thinking this might spur them to action.

I felt so strongly about this, that some of my favorite signs to hold at protests on this issue were ones that read, “Our Lives are not Cheap” (including myself in the word our) and “Who Will be the Next Victim?” At the protest in Tel Aviv the night before I was robbed and assaulted, my sign read, “Arab Blood Does Not Interest Bibi and His Government!”But even as I held it, I felt that sanctifying life in general — Arab or Jewish — is not a priority of our prime minister and his government.

I suppose that is why, as one of the burglars held a knife to my throat and told me I was sexy, I thought to myself – Well, my prediction was true. I guess I am tonight’s victim!

The story began at 4am when I was alone in the house with my almost 15-year-old daughter and the family cat and dog. My spouse Jacob was out of the country for work, my 18-year-old son was at his girlfriend’s house, my 21-year-old was in Thailand, and my four older kids live in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. So when I heard my dog Munchkin barking wildly in the living room area where she sleeps, I knew I was the one who had to go see what was upsetting her.

I thought maybe an animal had gotten into the house, or perhaps there was a fire. I did not expect to see two masked men in black with their phone flashlights, searching the house. I said, “Who are you?” One grabbed me, covered my mouth, and pulled me out to our backyard, from where they had come. Apparently, they had climbed over our back fence and broken into our house through the back door. He took out a pocket knife and held it to my throat and told me not to scream. He also told me to calm Munchkin.

The man held me in the backyard in my nightshirt and underwear for a while, while the other man turned the house over, looking for money. They kept saying, “Where’s the money? Where’s the money? Jewelry?” They especially wanted gold. I told them I had no money or jewelry stashed away, that I am a simple woman. They said I was lying.

It felt like an hour, but maybe it was only fifteen minutes. Finally, I said I was cold and sick (referring to my muscular dystrophy) and couldn’t stand there anymore and needed to go inside. He picked me up in his arms like a baby and brought me to the couch, where he told me to lay down. If I was sick, he said, he wanted to know if I had a license for medical marijuana. Did I have weed in the house? I said no.

Then he started to search my body for jewelry. That is when he told me I was sexy. I prepared myself emotionally to be raped. I prayed he would not murder me after and then move on to my daughter, who was still asleep in her room, I assumed.

Luckily, he was distracted when he saw my thick gold wedding ring. He told me to take it off. I struggled to do so, as the only times I have taken it off were when I had surgery. He was becoming impatient. I thought he might cut off my finger to get it. They were both stressed and desperate. I assumed they were addicts who needed a fix. They even smoked cigarettes while in my house.

One man asked for water. When I brought it to him in a glass, he did not drink, said he needed it to be in a disposable cup. I assume because he was worried about identifying his DNA. I said we don’t have disposables in our house, which is true. He went to the fridge and took my son’s bottle of Fuze Tea.

They continued to search; they were becoming angry that they could not find anything of worth. I told them I didn’t have medical marijuana, but I did have drops of medical CBD oil, for the pain from my illness. Maybe they wanted that. I brought it to them. They opened it, smelled it, and said no; they didn’t want it.

I finally managed to take off the ring and told the men I would give it to them on the condition they leave right away. I made both of them swear on their mother’s lives and on Allah that they would leave as soon as I gave them the ring. Each of them. And surprisingly, they agreed. I made them stand halfway out the door when I handed it to them, and I closed and locked the door as soon as they were on the other side.

I went to call Jacob, but they had stolen my phone, which had been next to my bed. All the drawers in my room were open with the clothing strewn about over the floor. They had stolen my wallet, too, with all my credit and i.d. cards, as well as jewelry and babysitting and waitering money from my kids’ rooms.

I called Jacob in New York from my daughter’s phone, which I took from next to her bed. She was still asleep, had slept through everything – the blessing of being a teenager! Jacob told me to call the police immediately while he called Shai, the head of kibbutz security. A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. It was Shai. I opened the door for him and broke down crying, releasing all my pent-up fear. I didn’t have to be brave anymore.

When the police showed up, I had already collected myself again. Which is good, so that I had the presence and composure to tell them what I did about doing the work police are meant to be doing, i.e., fighting real crime, instead of arresting non-violent innocent citizens exercising their democratic rights to freedom of speech, protest, and movement.

Thankfully, I did come out of the experience alive. Traumatized, but still breathing. But I hardly slept the next night. Every sound alarmed me — especially when Munchin started barking and I saw a man with a flashlight walking around to the back of the house.

I got up and locked my bedroom door that time instead of going out to check. My body was trembling as I took my phone to call Shai. That is when I saw his message. It said he was outside the house patrolling and I should not be alarmed.

I got back into bed but couldn’t fall back asleep. I was still trembling. I hadn’t realized how traumatized I still was by the ordeal. It will take some time before I feel safe in my own home again.

But it does help to know the police are dealing with the case. Suddenly, the same police who detained me over and over, targeting me for political reasons to try to scare me into stopping our protests, have become my advocates and friends. I speak and text with them daily on their private numbers, and they answer me quickly, no matter what time of day or night. They are, truly to my surprise, on top of the case.

When I called Jacob with my daughter’s phone right after the burglars had left, he told me to call the police. My answer was, “Why? They won’t do anything anyway. You know that.” I had lost so much of my faith in our police force (Ben Gvir’s police), I honestly believed that to be true; I honestly did not think they considered it their job to protect me.

Jacob convinced me to call them anyway, and I am glad I did, as they are treating the file with urgency. As they explained, it is a case involving serious criminal violations. Plus, because I agreed to reveal my identity, the story has been covered heavily by the media. 

The very same day of the robbery, the head of our regional council posted on social media about the incident, but without my name. When reporters started calling her, asking if the victim would agree to an interview, I made the decision to let her give them my name and number. I decided the country, especially those people in Hannaton who did not believe the violence would get past our yellow gate, needed to know the truth.

The only way people would really take notice was if there was a name and face behind the story. That is why I decided to let them use a photograph of me as well. I even appeared on a few live television news programs – something I had never agreed to do before in my life.

Only later did it occur to me that the police would also give the case more attention because of the publicity it received (a fact those officers dealing with the case shared, as until then this had not crossed my mind). I only hope they are not giving my case more attention than others in the area because I am Jewish. 

A bitter tongue-in-cheek joke some of my Arab friends say is, “Tell them it’s a Jew who was killed, and the police will come running!” Well, it seems there is some truth to that. Although, to the police’s credit, they cancelled a meeting with me yesterday when there was a triple murder in a Bedouin village between Hannaton and Shefa-Amr, where the police station is located. At least that means they are prioritizing those murders over my case, which actually makes me happy.

Not only are they on top of my case, but it seems they have arrested at least one suspect. This was in the media as well. When I heard this, the first thing I thought was that I would like to speak to this man when he is not holding a knife to my throat. I would like to know what pushed him to such an extreme violent action, why he felt crime was the best course for his life to take. I would even want to assist him in getting help and rehabilitation.

I did not want to be Sunday night’s victim, even if somehow I had eerily felt I might be “the next victim” one day. But since I was, since for some strange unknown reason those robbers chose my kibbutz of all villages, my house of all houses, and that night when I was almost alone of all nights, perhaps it was meant to be, so that I would go public with this story and be part of the country’s wake-up call to finally realize that violence and crime (organized or otherwise) are a problem in Israeli society as a whole, a problem that all of us – Arabs and Jews alike – must force our security systems and institutions to address. 

And as unlikely as it is that this government will do anything, we must try to force their hand as well. At this rate, we don’t have the luxury of waiting until the next elections for something to change. By then, we could all be either dead or living in fortresses. Neither option is one I came to this country – and definitely not to what should be a quiet and peaceful kibbutz in the Galilee – to suffer.