A woman living in southern Manitoba says she stood in shock earlier this month when she learned of the atrocities happening in her home country of Israel. 

Sharon Assouline Harvilko grew up in southern Israel, in the city of Eilat, which is bordered by Egypt and Jordan. In 2015 she moved to Canada and today she works in Steinbach. 

Her people were attacked by Hamas on October 7th and Assouline Harvilko says she has been in constant communication with her family ever since. Her family is alive and right now, Assouline Harvilko says her closest connection to any murders or kidnappings is her nephew's friend who was taken hostage. And, she says her closest connection to the military is a cousin's son, who is in combat.

Assouline Harvilko lives with her husband and two young boys in southern Manitoba. She says she came to Canada so that her children would not have to experience what she did. Assouline Harvilko recalls Desert Storm when she would wear a gas mask to school. She says to this day, she will not step foot on a bus, because in Israel, buses explode. Even in Manitoba, when she enters any building, she immediately looks for a second exit. Assouline Harvilko says if she sees a bag lying unattended anywhere, she will leave and says she also never sits in a restaurant with her back to the door. 

"Those things are embedded in you," she says. 

Assouline Harvilko recalls the days of working at the border in Israel when she was briefed upon her arrival as to what percentage of a chance there was for a terrorist attack that day. 

She says the first time she went to a mall in Winnipeg she refused to enter because there were no guards or metal detectors at the entrance to ensure that no bombs were being brought in. Assouline Harvilko also shares of the time she was visiting a friend in B.C. when a siren went off. She yelled for people to take cover, thinking they were under attack. She was quickly told that what she was hearing was not a war siren, but the sounds from the clock indicating it was 12 o'clock. 

Assouline Harvilko says she has seen funeral after funeral after funeral in her lifetime and the move to Canada brought her so much happiness, until the attacks on October 7th. 

"Now it feels so lonely," she admits. 

Assouline Harvilko says many people are extremely traumatized back home. She notes even ambulance workers, nurses and soldiers need mental therapy right now because of the images they have witnessed and the incomprehensible acts they have seen done to human bodies. 

"The things are beyond horrible," cries Assouline Harvilko, referring to the rapes, beheadings and the cruelty with which the dead bodies are being paraded down the streets. 

Assouline Harvilko says she came to Canada in order to leave this all behind her. She questions how many wars a human being can endure.

According to Assouline Harvilko, her friends and family are not planning to follow her to Canada. 

"They are adamant they are not moving," she says, even though rockets are flying over their homes, falling on buildings next door.

"There is no way they are going to break us," she says. "We owe it to the people and to the kids, the children, the women, everybody who got kidnapped and we owe it to the dead, they are not going to break our spirit."

Assouline Harvilko begs people in southern Manitoba to stop the silence. She says there were convoys for freedom during COVID-19 and questions why there cannot be convoys for humanity today. 

"I'm asking you to think about the future of Canada," she says. "It's for you and for your children, because today it's the Jews, tomorrow it's you the Christians."

She adds, that being quiet is also a crime.

"You need to step up, you need to go and say, 'Not in our country,' because today it's the Jews and tomorrow it's our girls who are going to be raped, our kids who are going to be beheaded. This is a free country," she adds. 

Assouline Harvilko refers to Steinbach as an amazing community. She says she works in "the most amazing place and was blessed with the most amazing bosses," who are giving her time off because of the stress that has made it difficult to function. 

Assouline Harvilko says right now what she and her friends and family are going through, is reminiscent of what Jews were being told in the 1930's, when the world told them not to stress and that nothing would happen. 

"No one backed them up and no one stood and said 'This is wrong,'" she says. "The Nazis were a minority when they came up, but because of the silence of the majority, the Holocaust happened. This is the time when every Canadian needs to stand up and say, "No one in this country is going to hide their identity.'"

Assouline Harvilko fears that history is repeating itself. 

"They are going to do what Hitler was planning to do," she says.

Assouline Harvilko begs Canadians to stand up for religions and stand up against the bullying that the Jewish community is right now facing. She asks people to tell legislators that we as Canadians will not tolerate anti-Semitism.

 

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