For the past several weeks, Maayan Gordon, an American Jew, has been sharing her immigration story to Israel with more than two million followers on TikTok. The journey reached its peak on Thursday when Gordon, her husband Benjamin and their one-year-old daughter Eliora boarded a one-way flight to Jerusalem, where they plan to rebuild their lives in more ways than one.
“We are very excited about the move,” she says in an interview with ynet. “We already learned that we don’t have a safe room or shelter in the building in the Arnona neighborhood, but there is one in the building next door, so everything works out for the best.”
Social media influencer Maayan Gordon, who immigrated to Israel
(Video: TikTok)
Gordon’s (34) life story could easily become a Netflix series. She was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Seattle and was the only Jewish child in her elementary school. In high school she decided to leave religion after being accepted to the school’s basketball team, whose games were held on Shabbat.
“I wasn’t connected to religion when I was young and because I loved basketball so much I decided to give it up for the court,” she says with the openness that characterizes her.
The immigration of Gordon and her family was supported by the organization Nefesh B’Nefesh in cooperation with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (KKL) and Jewish National Fund (JNF)-USA.
“It’s not that Israel is foreign to me. I have family there and I visited several times, mainly to see my grandmother who lives in Jerusalem,” she says. “The last time I visited was in 2024, in the middle of the war, and I felt like I was at home. The way of life in Israel, where everyone is very open, suits me much more than the American way of life. I feel that in Israel I can be myself without filters. People here go through things together and that’s why I’m making aliyah.”
'There was a huge explosion with a fireball'
What does a successful content creator with a thriving online business want with a country in wartime chaos? A deeper look into Gordon’s life reveals a thread that may explain her willingness to leave success in the United States, go against the TikTok mainstream and speak openly about her Jewish identity, ultimately moving to Israel while ballistic missiles are flying.
To understand this, one has to go back years to a time when the young Gordon struggled to find her place in college life. At 19 she decided to drop out despite her parents’ expectations that she would become a lawyer. She began working in online writing.
One day a dramatic event occurred while she and her then-boyfriend, now her husband, were at home: a gas canister in the house exploded, but they survived and suffered mainly severe injuries.
“There was a huge explosion with a fireball, that’s what people say, I just don’t remember it because we were in the center of it,” she recalls. “I didn’t understand what happened until I looked in the mirror when we got out and saw my hair was burned, and only then did I start to understand.”
With no home and no career, the couple bought a campervan to live in. They began traveling and posting documentation of their lives on social media, gradually attracting followers interested in their story.
“I opened Instagram in 2012 with no expectations of becoming a content creator, but the page grew quickly,” she says. “We started to understand there was financial potential in it. I learned glassblowing and we started selling cups and glass items I made online, first on Instagram and then on TikTok.”
The videos became a success, but then the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and Gordon felt she needed to reinvent herself.
“We were all stuck at home, and I started speaking with businesspeople on Zoom and tried to learn how they succeeded,” she says. At the same time, she discovered that many people struggled with marketing their products. Gordon, already experienced in social media, founded a new media and consulting company helping businesses expand through digital marketing and video content.
Returning to her roots
Judaism was always in the background, and Gordon was familiar with Jewish traditions from childhood, but she had left religious practice and did not feel strongly connected to it. That changed on the night of Simchat Torah 5784, October 7, 2023.
“I quickly began to understand what was happening in Israel and when I tried to talk about it with people around me it felt like no one understood me,” she says in frustration. “That day and those that followed made me think about how Jews and Israelis are there for each other in difficult moments. We were living in Alabama at the time and I saw that the local Chabad house invited Jews and Israelis for an evening discussion about the situation. I assume the goal was for us to be together and support each other. That evening brought me back to religion. I started studying Torah again and going back to synagogue. I felt like I had been exposed again to a language I hadn’t spoken in 20 years, a kind of return to my roots.”
Unexpectedly, Gordon’s return to tradition was strongly supported by her husband Benjamin, who is Christian and will now begin the process of conversion to Judaism after moving to Israel.
“My desire to make aliyah surprised my husband because we had never talked about it before, but he was and still is amazing and supportive,” Gordon says. “I think I went on a journey and he joined me. I like talking things through because I hear other people’s opinions. I spoke with him constantly and he also felt it was the right thing to do, because he is also very engaged in his relationship with God.”
She adds: “I also think my pregnancy brought me closer to my family in Israel and we wanted to raise our daughter in a place that would be best for her soul, where she would learn how to deal with situations.”
Gordon was originally supposed to arrive in Israel during the Operation "Roaring Lion" but her flight was canceled. The delay did not change her decision.
“The war that broke out now did not change our decision to make aliyah,” she says. “It was clear to both of us that this is the right thing to do. We waited two years from the moment we decided and we did not want to wait any longer.”