An Israeli girl who won a writing contest organized by a far-right Jewish group, which focused on female disempowerment, donated her prize money to an organization helping Palestinian women - as a sign of protest.
Noa Stern took part in the competition organized by Lehava, which strictly opposes Jewish assimilation, with its theme being the opposition of "assimilation of women" in society.
2 View gallery
Image taken from Lehava foundation's social media video
(Photo: Lehava's Telegram page)
Stern’s story revolved around a hilltop youth girl who meets a German boy and falls for him despite her friend’s warnings. At the end, when the couple’s son is born, the girl finds out her lover’s grandfather is none other than Adolf Hitler.
Once proclaimed the winner of the contest, Stern decided to donate the prize money she received to a Palestinian association who helps integrate Palestinian women into the Israeli workforce by teaching them Hebrew.
“I’m glad I could turn some of Lehava’s budget for connection and love between people, rather than hate and segregation,” Stern said.
“Lehava might talk about assimilation, but it doesn’t really interest them. I may have been the only one [in the contest] who mentioned Jewish tradition. While in other entries, assimilation was a code for an Arab man beating you.”
She added: “The organization sees women as national property, if they go out with an Arab man, it degrades the nation. It’s also their slogan – ‘don’t touch my sister’. They’ll try and use tragic stories to prove the importance of preventing relationships with Arab men, as if women who were married to violent Jewish men were never murdered. Violence against women isn’t the issue, assimilation isn’t the issue, the issue is to mark women as national property, nothing more.”
Bentzi Gopstein, founder of the organization, said they realized Stern was trying to “troll” them from the start.
“Since her story was fitting, we admitted it into the contest,” Gopstein said. “I didn’t want to rule it out because of her political opinions. What she did with the prize money isn’t my problem. In any case, publishing her story will help other girls not to assimilate. As we saw in many tragic cases – assimilation kills.”