“What’s changed in Israel since October 6? Everything – everything has changed”

Thank you to Brian Henry for interviewing me for the Canadian Zionist Forum, a substack written by David  "What's changed in Israel since October 6? Everything – everything has changed"A conversation with novelist Gila Green, interview #1 of Conversations with Canadian-Israelis

BRIAN HENRYAUG 07, 2024

Today we are proud to offer a new article by regular contributor, Brian Henry. This interview with Canadian-Israeli author Gila Green is intended to be the first of a series. We are grateful to Brian for sharing the interview with us here. Please read it below.

Note: This interview has been somewhat condensed and edited for clarity.

Brian: Gila, wonderful to see you online! For our talk, I'd like to start with your basic biographical information. Then move to two big questions: What's changed in Israel since October 7? And, what do you want Canadians to know about Israel?

Gila: Thank you for inviting me to this interview series. Particularly now. It's no secret that Jewish writers – no matter what they believe or who they are or where they live or what their background – are being excluded from so many spaces. So particularly now, your invitation is very much appreciated.
My name is Gila Green. I'm originally from Ottawa. My family's been in Ottawa for a number of generations. My great-grandparents moved there from Quebec. So I have deep Canadian roots which I think shows up in a lot of my writing, no matter how far away I am.
I didn't actually make aliyah. I'm an unusual category, a citizen born outside the country, because if you have an Israeli parent, you're automatically a citizen. So I didn't get any of the rights or benefits that people who make aliyah get when they come.
My father's from Jerusalem and his family has been in Jerusalem for a number of generations. His family came to Israel from Yemen in the early 1880s, as part of what was called the First Yishuv or the Old Yishuv.
My mother's an Ashkenazi Canadian lady, whose parents' first language was Yiddish in the home and eventually English at school. They always spoke a lot of Yiddish and my grandmother spoke French as well – she was from Montreal.
My husband is South African, so I've been to South Africa and I lived there in the last year of Apartheid. Lately it hasn't seemed the most welcoming environment. (The South African government has aligned itself with Hamas.)
I have five children, a son and four daughters, three of whom are married. I teach English as a foreign language at the Jerusalem College of Technology. My students are mostly regular day-to-day wonderful Israelis, and they're often Russian or French or Ethiopian. There's been an increase in French students. Given what's going on in France now [with rising antisemitism], there have been more French olim (immigrants).
And I'm also a writer, an editor, and a novelist. My fifth novel is officially out on Amazon and I have a sixth novel that will be available for pre-order in September.
I currently live in Beit Shemesh, and I've been here for 25 years. Beit Shemesh is smack in the middle between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and overlooks the Judean Hills. It didn't start off that way when I moved here, but today it's a very ex-pat community.  It's basically thousands of Americans. Also, Canadians, Australians, Brits, South Africans – any English-speaking country you can think of.

Click here for the rest of the interview.