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Nahanni Rous: Hi, it’s Nahanni Rous. Welcome back to Can We Talk?, the podcast of the Jewish Women’s Archive, where gender, history, and Jewish culture meet.

Jen Marlowe: Generally in the world, um, people try to survive. Communities want to live. People want their children to survive, not only to survive, but to have a chance at a future, to have a chance at being able to thrive. Um, and so escaping the horrors of what's happening in Gaza is one of the only ways that people see their ability to do that.

Nahanni: For the past eight months, Jen Marlowe has been working—often around the clock—to help Palestinians get out of Gaza.

Jen: No one takes that decision lightly. None of the folks that I know, um, who have fled for their safety, have done that, um, joyfully.

Nahanni: Since Hamas’ brutal attack on Israeli civilians on October 7, our focus on Can We Talk? has been on Israeli women’s responses to the war. In this episode, we're turning our attention to Gaza. Israel’s sustained bombardment has taken a terrible toll on civilians in Gaza—tens of thousands of people have been killed, and nearly two million people have been displaced, some of them multiple times.

In this episode of Can We Talk?, we’ll hear from Jen Marlowe about her recent trip to Egypt to meet with some of the people she has helped get to safety. She’ll talk about the conditions people face in Gaza, and what it’s like for her to do this work.

Jen is a documentary filmmaker, writer, and human rights activist with deep connections to Gaza. She’s also a dear friend of mine. We’ve known each other since the early 2000s, when we were both living in Jerusalem. At the time, Jen was working with Israeli and Palestinian teenagers. She later moved back to the States, pivoted to media and human rights work, and founded Donkeysaddle Projects, a storytelling and social justice initiative. Jen’s connection to Gaza goes back many years.

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Jen: The first time I traveled to Gaza was in 2001, um, and my most recent trip to Gaza was in 2019. So over that 18-year period, I had traveled to Gaza…I don't even think I could count how many times—maybe 40, maybe 50 times. Um, in the earlier years of that, access of getting to Gaza was relatively uncomplicated. You could just show up at Erez checkpoint with your—as an international, let me qualify that, as an international was relatively uncomplicated. I could show up with my passport. I could, you know, show it to the Israeli soldier sitting at a desk, and within five minutes, I'd be inside Gaza.

So in those earlier years, I would often go you know, have lunch with friends, um, in, you know, for example, in Nuseirat refugee camp. I'm remembering a family there that I would, you know, go have lunch, come back on the same day. Um, and it was really easy to do that.

As access to get into Gaza became more and more restricted over the years and it became harder and harder to get in, I would go less often, but when I would go, I would stay for longer periods of time. Um, partly 'cause I never knew when my next chance to go would be. And so I wanted to make sure that I had enough time there to see all of the people I cared about. And of course, with each trip to Gaza, as I met more and more people, the number of people that I cared about grew and grew.

Nahanni: So you’ve spent a lot of time in Gaza. In the beginning, it was through your work with Seeds of Peace, which is an organization that brings Israeli and Palestinian teenagers together. Can you briefly explain your pivot from that to more human rights-based work?

Jen: Yeah, I'd be happy to. Seeds of Peace is based on this idea of dialogue-based coexistence to address what's going on, but programs like that don't directly acknowledge the imbalance of power and privilege. And so I became drawn more to work that directly addressed systems of oppression, and that's how I became more drawn to documentation with a human rights lens and a social justice lens. And it's through that work that I continued to develop my relationship with folks in Gaza and projects in Gaza.

You know, our ethic at Donkeysaddle Projects is one of commitment—ongoing commitments to places and people. We don't do what I call "hit-and-run journalism," where we parachute in, kind of find a powerful story, extract it and that's it. Our commitment is really ongoing to the people and places where we're working, and that goes beyond Gaza as well. But in Gaza, that has meant decades-long relationships, in some cases, with families that I have done films with or have been a part of articles that I have written or have been team members on the ground who have worked with me on those projects—the commitments to those families and those relationships with those families have been ongoing.

Nahanni: So, given all of your friendships on both sides of this conflict, and your past 20 years of work in Gaza, what was your reaction to Hamas’s attack on Israeli civilians of October 7?

Jen: I think when I heard what happened on October 7, uh, I remember feeling simultaneously horrified by what I heard happening, um, to Israeli civilians and terrified about what I knew was bound to happen to Palestinian civilians. And I understood even then, you know, when the Israeli death toll was still being calculated, and Israelis were in such trauma and shock and fear, I understood even then that the price that innocent Palestinians would pay for what happened, um, would be beyond comprehension, in terms of the numbers of, of lives that would be lost, the amount of devastation, the amount of trauma and destruction.

Nahanni: What have the last eight months been like for you personally, with so many close connections in Gaza?

Jen: Oh, it's been horrible. Um, it's been absolutely horrible. I have, you know—this first, you know, several months I'd say of, um, of the onslaught. I was, uh, doing what I came to call, like, survival roll call. Like in the morning, every morning, I immediately just, like, get on WhatsApp and scroll through and see who I heard from and, you know, try to check in with, you know, the dozens of people in Gaza who I was trying to check in with on a regular basis. And literally just checking like, who's still alive, who am I hearing from, who has been displaced? Like all of that has been, um…you know, and, and still doing that to, uh, to a large degree. Um, but it was absolutely excruciating.

And then, you know, once there became this small window to try to get people out, there was then something more concrete that I could do—I mean, I think also emotionally for me, if I know that I can do something helpful and effective. I mean, the reason for me to do that is not for my own emotions, the reason for me to do that is because it's helpful and effective, but it also serves to, like, help me feel less helpless. Um, so I, you know, I'm happy to feel hopeful and less hopeless.

But I think when we started working on evacuations, I very quickly realized we were, uh, you know, fulfilling a niche of—just ended up stumbling into gaining this expertise in what it takes to get people safe that not a lot of people had.

Um, and so that, you know, began to focus most of my energy on that, because I realized that that was a role I could play that was needed. Um, again, small-scale, but something I could—you know, there seemed to me that there was nothing more important that I could imagine spending my time doing than helping folks who were trying to reach safety, um, get to safety.

Nahanni: So far, Jen and her team have helped 85 Palestinians cross the border into Egypt since the beginning of the war. That’s a small fraction of over a 100,000 Palestinians who have managed to get out of Gaza. It's expensive, bureaucratic, and logistically complicated. The company that's escorting people from Gaza into Egypt charges $5,000 per adult and $2,500 per child under 16—payable only in American dollars cash, which are hard to come by in Egypt. So, for example, if two parents and four kids can get on the list, the cost is $20,000.

Jen: Most Palestinians do not have tens of thousands of dollars of, uh, disposable income. Especially 'cause, you know, even families that maybe had some means, um—survival in the past seven months, um, during the onslaught has been incredibly expensive and incredibly challenging. So whatever goods… there's been such a limitation of basic needs available in Gaza, whether that's food, whether that's potable water. Over 85% of of housing has been, you know, demolished or seriously damaged, uh, if I'm remembering that number correctly. So people finding other places to stay or buying tents, all those things are exorbitantly expensive.

Uh, and so folks—even families who did have some money—so much of that money has just gotten siphoned off, um, for survival. And then of course, there's so many families in Gaza who were desperately poor even before. And so, um, being able to  raise the money, the $5,000 per adult, uh, to be able to cross the border is a hurdle that for the vast majority of the over 2,000,000 Palestinians in Gaza is one that's unimaginable.

Nahanni: Jen has raised tens of thousands of dollars to help people pay the crossing fee, and has moved hundreds of thousands of dollars into Egypt. She also helps people navigate bureaucracies and logistics in this high-stakes and highly unpredictable situation.

Jen: Since I started working on the evacuations, that is absolutely the most stressful thing I've ever done. And there were times that I literally felt like my nervous system was shattering. You know, even when you're clear, if you say to someone, "I'm gonna try to help you get to safety," and even if you're clear with them that you can't necessarily control the outcome, there's things beyond your control. The rules were always shifting, especially in the early months. Like every week there was like, you had to figure out, like, different restrictions, different rules, different hurdles, different ways. You had to get around those rules. Like it was constant. Every time I would have a conversation with someone explaining them how the process would work. I would have to say, like, "Everything I'm telling you is true today—it may no longer be true tomorrow." Right? 

But there was this invisible line that I would feel like I would cross, once we were taken on the commitment to try to help a family or a person get to safety, where all of a sudden, the responsibility for their lives felt like it was on my shoulders. And so, um, you know, there was, there's been many, many, many nights where literally, I just didn't sleep. Partly 'cause of the time difference. I live in Seattle, so a lot of times, you know, I was just up all night waiting as people were crossing the border in the morning in Egypt, and that process would be hours and hours and hours. But I couldn't rest until I knew that folks had made it to safety, 'cause there's all kinds of, you know, things—problems that could happen in the process. And there were times where I needed to, you know, at three in the morning in Seattle, be getting on the phone and talking to, uh, my colleague in Egypt and having him run interference because someone's birthdate had been listed wrong on the list where that was published for them to cross or you know, those kinds of problems.

Nahanni: Can you tell us about some of the people you’ve helped get out?

Jen: Sure. There's a family of four young people, um, who we were trying to help evacuate and in their case, you know, a cousin of theirs who's in the US had raised the money, but didn't know how to go about getting them out.

These four young people– the youngest was 12 years old. The oldest was a 22-year-old young man, two sisters who were 18 and 19, and then a 12-year-old little boy. Um, and the four kids' parents had been killed, um, in an airstrike on their home. That airstrike also killed another sister. Um, and the littlest, the 12-year-old little boy had, had been—his body, was, like, covered in shrapnel. Shrapnel embedded in his body and his skull. Um, and so this little boy needed medical care, and these four kids, um, were trying to get to safety.

Um, and at that time, the company Yahallah had had such a long wait list, so many. Thousands and thousands of people had been registered that, um, if we signed them up with Yahallah, it would take four to five weeks before they were actually able to cross the border. And we thought we had a faster way, um, that we could do it. And so, we asked them, you know, "Should we try this faster way?" So they said, you know, "Yes, if that's your advice, we trust you. Please try this faster way," which was a more expensive way.

And, you know, we tried the faster way, and essentially, it didn't end up working. And so at that point then we registered them with Yahallah, but we had lost those three weeks. So in trying to get the family, you know, these four kids out the fastest possible way, we actually significantly delayed their ability to get to safety.

And like the little boy got injured again during those three weeks. Fortunately, not badly, but um, a building exploded that shattered the window. You know, windows were near where he was and sliced his leg and he needed stitches. You know, his leg got cut and he also got hepatitis and was quite ill, was like dizzy and throwing up, and his hair was turning yellow, and there's an outbreak of Hepatitis A, which is usually a self-contained disease, a self-limiting disease. And people usually heal from Hepatitis A, but kids are dying of Hepatitis A right now in Gaza, because their general situation of health and immunity and all of that has been so compromised. Um, and so I was, I was just, I was just terrified. I just couldn't sleep, you know, until they ended up crossing, um, and getting into safety.

Nahanni: And where are they now?

Jen: They're in Cairo, and I spent some time with them when I was just in Cairo. So thank God they are safe. Um, but we're so happy to meet them. I mean, they're just such warm, loving, amazing young people. The 12-year-old just has that, like, little mischievous twinkle in his eye that like, you know [laughs], like, that little kid…you know, that little kid playfulness and you know, it's like he should get to be a kid. He should get to play. Like, I was talking with the older brother who's trying to figure out, like, is there a soccer camp that he can register the 12-year-old, whose name is Mohammed. You know, 'cause Mohammed loves soccer. And I'm just so hoping that they can pick up pieces of their life like that and have some kind of normalcy—I mean, nothing will change the fact that their parents were killed and that their sister was killed and that they were also in the home when it was bombed. You know, killing their family members and their home was destroyed, and how much they'll be able to rebuild or reclaim what could be for their future, still remains unknown.

Nahanni: Who are they staying with?

Jen: It's just the four of them staying. They're staying together. They're taking care of each other, which is what they've done. You know, they're who they have left in the world.

And there's another little kid named Abdullah, who—we met Abdullah when he was six years old. Abdullah has a lung disease, uh, and it's been controlled by this, you know, by a certain medication that he takes through an inhaler. And at the beginning of the war, my colleague Fadi got him three months' worth of his spray. And people around him were saying, "Are you crazy, you don’t need three months!"

Nahanni: They thought the war couldn’t possibly go on that long. Abdullah’s medication ran out four months ago. In the meantime, Jen and Fadi had lost communication with Abdullah. They finally reconnected by text and were relieved to know Abdullah was alive.

Jen: But then Fadi spoke to him and said Abdullah could barely breathe. Ugh. He was struggling to breathe. Um, and we sprung into action with another friend of ours who has helped us with Abdullah's case for months and months. Uh, raised all of the money to get Abdullah and his mom out in a very expedited way, uh, which costs more money and, and, uh, but it could only be for women and children, but Abdullah was—we've known him since he was 6, he's now 15, so like for a few more months before he turned 16, he could do it this expedited way. Like amazingly, got all of that raised in 12 hours, got Abdullah, like, registered for this expedited way to leave, which means he should be out within, like, 3 days, 3 to 5 days, and we could get him the treatment he needed. So this was Sunday, May 5, and the border closed on Tuesday, May 7.

Nahanni: Ohh.

Jen: We were one day. We were one day away from getting Abdullah out. [becomes emotional] So, yeah…So there's, you know, there's a feeling of accomplishment, sure, that, you know, we've been able to get a few dozen lives to safety, or help get a few dozen lives to safety. Um, but not only are there the people we feel responsible for who we didn't get out yet, you know, before the border closed—

Nahanni: Jen’s referring to the Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt.

Jen: —but also of course, you know, even if we got out everyone from all the cases that we're working on, you know, that's still just a drop in an ocean of desperation and pain. And of course, you know, I have to always remind myself that, like, I'm happy when we can get people to safety, and…what are the circumstances that are making it that people aren't safe where they are? Right, like what are the circumstances that are making it that in order to be able to know that you can wake up in the morning and that your kids will wake up in the morning means you have to, like, flee your home and your homeland? That should never be the case.

Nahanni: Mm-Hmm. What is the calculus on leaving versus staying that you are hearing from people?

Jen: There are people—I will say that there are people who are refusing to leave, of course, who are refusing the idea of leaving because, um, I think for a lot of people they feel like—they feel that they, that there's a clarity that what part of Israel's goal in this campaign is to drive people out. And there's folks who feel like they will not leave no matter what. And that staying on their homeland and in their home, uh, no matter what the consequence of that, um, might be, they are going to stay, um, in their homeland and, and in their home.

Um, and so that certainly is certain people's feelings, for which I have, you know, all the respect. And I also have all the respect for folks who are desperate to save their kids' lives, um, save their own lives. What people are facing, uh, is not only an absolutely, like, horrific scale of killing, but there's also been the destruction of everything that is needed, uh, for folks to be able to survive. And what I mean by that is hospitals are—you know, the medical system, the healthcare system is all but non-existent right now in Gaza. So not only is it that folks who are getting injured by airstrikes, um, or other attacks, can't get the attention that they need for their injuries, but all of the other kinds of medical care that people need. There's been zero, um, ability to diagnose or treat cancer, for example, since October 7 in Gaza. And so all of the basic healthcare needs, um, uh, are either barely functional or entirely non-functional in all of the Gaza Strip.

Food aid, uh, when it's gotten in, it's been sparse and far insufficient and only in certain geographic areas, leaving other geographic areas, um, facing conditions that are, um, essentially enforced starvation. Uh, potable—any, any water at all, but much less like potable water, as well as water to wash with, and water for basic hygiene. All of that is extremely challenging to get, if available at all. Um, and so outbreaks, epidemics, outbreaks of disease, um, like I said risk of, of widespread famine and starvation, um, the entire civilian population of Gaza is facing that. So, uh, conditions of life, the conditions needed to maintain life are being intentionally, um, attacked. And I say intentionally, 'cause I do believe that that is intentional.

Nahanni: Are there any particular vulnerabilities right now for Gazan women?

Jen: Sure. I mean, first of all, if you're talking about, like, childbirth, right? Like, childbirth in a time where there's, um, where the medical situation has been entirely devastated. So think about all of the different possible complications that can happen in childbirth and not having the ability, you know, first of all, for any kind of substantive prenatal care, much less, um, care during birth, you know, or after birth. Um, so I think that's, you know, that's first and foremost the thing that comes to my mind in answer to that question.

Nahanni: What is it like for you as a Jewish woman doing this work? Does your identity enter into your activism?

Jen: Yeah, thanks, I appreciate that question. I… I'm hesitating just 'cause it's a multifaceted answer.

For me, right now, today, doing this work, I don't necessarily approach my work from a Jewish identity-based place. I think I've focused it much more just from a, from a human rights-focused place. And this happens to be an area of the world that I've got deep relationships with. So it's an area where I can be more effective than other areas of the world in which there are, um, you know, huge and horrible crises.

But certainly, it's true that how I initially developed those connections and those relationships grew out of my Jewish identity. So it is both very much a part of the story of how I became deeply connected to working in the Middle East, you know, and to Gaza in particular, but also very much not—I don't do it from that place of Jewish identity for years now.

But what I mean in terms of the history, first and foremost, I think my whole sense, or my whole development of social justice was very much, um, cultivated by my activism in Reform Jewish youth group. Growing up in high school, I was really involved in the Reform Jewish youth movement and went to Jewish summer camps and was a counselor at Reform Jewish summer camps.And very much my sense of social justice, um, was nurtured in those days. But it did not particularly have anything to do with Palestinians and, you know, and in fact, I look back now and I have critique, um, about the way in which Palestine and Palestinians were, uh, I was educated about.

But, you know, so we were marching against apartheid in South Africa. I remember a large focus in those days was in trying to fight for freedom for Soviet Jews, um, for Ethiopian Jews. Uh, but, you know, I definitely credit my social justice training grounds as being in many ways Jewish youth movement.

Um, so having had that experience and that education, when I first encountered meeting Palestinians and hearing from Palestinians, and I was spending a year living in Jerusalem, um, on a fellowship through the Dorot Foundation. And that was my first time in the country and that was my first time meeting and talking to Palestinians and I was hearing things that felt so clear to me to be egregious injustices—you know, I was learning for the first time, hearing about the occupation and what that was and how that impacted the lives of the human beings that I was sitting and having tea with. Um, and to me, like all of the social justice training that I had gotten, all of my commitment that I had developed through Jewish youth group to tikkun olam, to repairing the world, like there it was, it felt very clear to me that I was hearing about something that was wrong and that I needed to learn more about it, and I needed to figure out what my response to it was going to be.

Nahanni: Now, years later, under much more extreme conditions, Jen’s response remains rooted in human relationships. There are 40 more people on her list who are waiting for the Rafah border to open so they can get into Egypt. There are countless others who have no hope of getting out.

Jen: There's never any, like, joy or satisfaction or accomplishment in knowing that we've gotten people to safety, when there's still millions of people who are trapped, um, who are, you know, under bombardment, um, and under siege and under threat, uh, in so many different ways. And it's not about like, "Well, how do we get all those people out too?" but how do we stop? How do we…how do we make sure that that people aren't being attacked and bombed and starved and deprived of the ability to have medical care and deprived of the ability to wash and to prevent the spread of disease and to have clean water to drink, and to just have their most basic life needs, um, secured? 

Nahanni: The work that you're doing is so important and so hard, and people's lives are so precarious. The responsibility that you've taken on feels so weighty. So how do you do that? Like, what keeps you going, and how do you cope with that?

Jen: It’s been hard at moments. There have definitely been moments that I've felt like I can't keep doing this because it does feel so weighty and hard and it does take a toll. But any time that thought has come to me, the next thought that follows it is, "But there's nothing more useful that I feel like I could be doing at this moment than helping get at least a tiny fraction of people who are in such danger, helping get them to safety."

Having just gone to Egypt and having had the chance to spend time with so many of the families who I've been working to help get to safety was really an extraordinary experience. There's one family I'm thinking about at this moment, my friend Mahmoud, who's been a close friend of mine for 25 years And when I saw Mahmoud—I went to visit him in the town where he's living—and the second he opened the door, just seeing him safe, just, like, being able to touch him and hug him, I just started crying. So I think those…What keeps me going? Whether it's someone that I'm connected to or whether it's someone that other people are connected to, like, every single life that's in danger is a life that is precious and is a life that is worthy and we all have a responsibility to protect human life.

Nahanni: Thank you so much for sharing these stories and doing the work that you do.

Jen: Thank you for the opportunity to talk about it.

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Nahanni: Jen Marlowe is a documentary filmmaker, writer, human rights activist, and the founder of Donkeysaddle Projects. You can learn more about her work at donkeysaddle.org. As of this podcast recording, the war between Israel and Hamas has been going on for 249 days.

Thank you for joining us for Can We Talk?, the podcast of the Jewish Women’s Archive. Our team includes Jen Richler and Judith Rosenbaum. Our theme music is by Girls in Trouble. Find us online at jwa.org/canwetalk, and anywhere you get your podcasts.

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