None of us are free until we are all free

April 22, 2024 Sophie Schor

The past 198 days I have been unable to write, to speak, to post, to analyze, to think. My heart has been shattered every day since October 7th. I could not find the words (and still cannot).

But I am rejoining the online conversations with a request to stand in solidarity with Palestine and Palestinians in a small but meaningful way: to raise money for a Palestinian activist (and one of my dearest friends) who needs to pay off medical debt or he will go to prison.

My friend lives in the West Bank in a small village that is surrounded by settlements and consistently targeted by the Israeli military and settlers. His family are leaders in nonviolent resistance movement and contribute all their energy and have dedicated their lives to bettering the communities around them (they live near Masafer Yatta). His family is ashamed to be asking for money or support at the same time as the genocide in Gaza is unfolding, or while others in the West Bank are having their homes demolished. He asks me not to share his name, but he needs help now.

On December 4, 2022, his son, Saif, was born. He died on December 26, 2022 after spending his entire life in hospitals. Saif was diagnosed with a congenital heart issue that doctors told him could be treated at a hospital in Tel Aviv, but he was denied a permit to enter into Israel for the treatment.

The story starts in the night of December 4th, this is in the night Sunday at 1AM, my wife, she went into labor. We took my car and we tried to go to the hospital in the nearby city, but there was a checkpoint. So we continued to a different town to try to get around the checkpoint to go to the hospital. The town is very far away from the hospital. My mom was with us, and she told us, your wife cannot wait until she enters the city. So because of this we went to a different hospital, a special hospital in village nearby. She is from there and if we need something, someone will come to help us. So we entered the village and within 10 minutes, she gave birth and we had our baby. After this, the doctor told me that you can come back in the morning to take your family. He told me that everything is okay, everything is amazing.

Quickly it became apparent that something was wrong. Over the 22 days of Saif’s short life, my friend and his family were in and out of hospitals in the West Bank, consulted with many doctors, and learned that there was nothing more that they could do without a surgery in the hospital in Tel Aviv that has the right equipment.

We came back in the morning and the doctor told me that the boy is not okay. He has something wrong, but not sure what it is. After this, the doctor put gave him oxygen and he is still alive. He called another doctor—a specialist. He came, and three days after they still didn’t know what was wrong. They wanted to change the hospital and bring the baby to a larger hospital in Hebron. After this, our son stayed in the hospital for another 2 days, and there are no doctors who could figure out what was going on. After this, he told me that there is one doctor who works at Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv. He called this doctor and the doctor arrived to Hebron at 11pm. He finally told us that our son had a problem in his heart. His heart doesn’t give enough blood to his body. After this, he tried and told us that he could perform a surgery, but it would cost a lot. We cannot do the surgery in the Palestinian West Bank, we have to do it in Tel HaShomer in Tel Aviv. And he knew that this would be a lot of work and money. So we tried to go to the government in Palestine to have them help me. And meanwhile my son stayed in the hospital. This was for like one month.

The government in Palestine was not able to help or to get permission from Israel for Saif to be transferred to a hospital in Tel Aviv. My friend won’t say it, refuses to get stuck thinking about the “what ifs,” but he knows that if they had been able to get access to the care they needed, if he had been able to go to the hospital in Tel Aviv, then Saif would be alive.

In the depths of his grief, my friend received more bad news.

He owed the hospitals and doctors over 200,000 NIS [$52,967 USD]. My friend worked out a payment plan with the doctors and private hospitals and each month contributed to the debt.

At this time, I am very angry about everything. I’m angry at the doctor, I’m angry about what happened to my son. I told him I don’t want to give you more money, we don’t have the money. The doctor was upset, he went to the police. Then he called me, he called my father, and we told him okay we will try to pay. I didn’t care anymore. My son was dead. I told him that I can’t give him all of the money at once—so we tried to make a solution about this. So we had a meeting and he brought his lawyer. At the meeting we calculated all of the money that was owed and I gave him checks that were my name that he would cash each month. After this, I was working in Israel again. You know me, you visited me at my work, and I work hard. It’s okay at this point because I was working, we had money to pay back the hospital, to pay for my permit, to pay for my family. Everything was okay alhumdilallah.

He worked as a construction worker in Israel for a Jewish Israeli contractor. My last trip to Israel, I visited him in a suburb outside of Tel Aviv where he was working. The buildings are practically appearing overnight: tall apartment complexes, new parks, brand new community centers. I walked past a youth group meeting and heard them singing songs familiar to my mom.My friend was there working on the road—they would work at night with the hot tar and asphalt because it was too hot during the summer days. He stayed there for weeks on end, not seeing his wife or son or family. But the money was too good to pass up. We sat in the park and he bought me an ice cream, he refused to let me pay for it, and we caught up. He stayed at the bus stop waving at me as I left to return to Tel Aviv. My heart stretched with both joy at seeing him, and the bittersweet anger that while he was proud of his work because he could afford to build his new wife and his first son a beautiful home, he had to stay away from them for weeks. This was his only option since there are no jobs for him in the West Bank.

Since October 7th, he has had no work. His employer refused to pay him, refused to hire him, and blamed him for the attack carried out by Hamas. He has been unable to find employment since then. Because he has not been able to pay the debt anymore, the director of the hospital has gone to the police and my friend will soon be put in prison. He has already had to make a court appearance. The remaining debt is 60,000 NIS [$15,890].

His situation is directly connected to the war in Gaza. The State of Israel is collectively punishing all Palestinians for the attacks in October—the borders have been closed and there are no permits available for Palestinians to enter into Israel for work. At the same time, there is no work in the West Bank. There are approximately over 700,000 unemployed Palestinians since October 7th. The International Labor Organization, a U.N. agency focused on improving labor standards around the world, estimated last month that some 507,000 jobs have been lost in the West Bank and Gaza as of the end of January.

The healthcare system in the West Bank is yet another way that life is made intolerable for Palestinians—there is no state provided healthcare and all costs must be paid directly. Many hospitals do not have the resources or technology to provide adequate care. The World Health Organization recommends significant changes to the entire system: from the coordination between Israel and Palestinians who need access to care, to the Palestinian Authority, to the international community. In June 2021, Scientific American “published a statement by health care workers, calling on health care systems, academic institutions, and health care professionals in the United States to “unequivocally condemn Israel’s long-standing oppression of the Palestinian people” and the ongoing decimation of their health”

There is corruption at every level of the healthcare system, and when my friend last met with the finance office at the hospital and said he has no money to even buy food for his family, the director told him that this is not his problem and that he should steal the money to pay off the debt.

This man is one of my closest friends from my time in Jerusalem. His family is like my second family. He has welcomed me into his home time and time again. This is the very least that I can do for him. It is a challenging time, where there are so many people in Gaza and Palestine and the world who need help. This is one donation that I can vouch for will make a huge impact in someone’s life. He needs to raise approximately $16,000 USD [60,000 NIS] by June 25th or he will go to prison.

So I am sharing this request with you on the first night of Passover as a reminder that none of us are free until we are all free. Our liberation as Jews, and as humans, is tied up with the liberation of Palestinians and all people who live in that region. Any donations can be sent via PayPal to sophie.schor@gmail.com, via this donation page, by clicking the link below, or directly to Sophie via Venmo (@Sophie-Schor—last 4 digits of phone number 8015). The money will be transferred to another friend in Israel who will then bring the shekels directly to my friend in the West Bank.

I ask that you share this amongst your networks as well as family and friends. This is a direct way and form of mutual aid to stand in solidarity with Palestinians now. I am grateful you for anything that you can contribute.