An Open Letter to University Presidents
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Yaron Avraham’s Journey from a Shahid in Training to a Committed Jew.
Growing up in a religious Muslim Arab family in Lod in the 1980s, Yaron Avraham was exposed to crime and violence from a young age. As a seven-year-old, he was sent to distribute drugs to his family’s customers in the neighborhood.
At age nine, things went from bad to worse. Yaron’s 16-year-old sister, whom he’d been the closest with out of his 17 siblings, was murdered by his older brothers in a “family honor” killing. She came home late one evening, and that was too suspicious in these extremist Muslim circles. The murder took place at home, in the room next to Yaron’s, and he heard everything.
The family covered up the murder, and to this day, Yaron’s sister is listed as missing in Israeli government records. But the family had a problem. Yaron began asking questions. He wanted to know where his sister went and what his brothers did to her.
Sensing danger, Yaron’s family decided to send him far away from home, to a mosque that doubled as a boarding school in Gaza. “I don’t know if they knew about the education there, or if they simply wanted to get rid of me,” says Yaron. “I found myself in a mosque – one of the most extreme in Gaza.” The education he received there can only be termed child abuse.
The mosque’s explicit objective was to turn its students into shahids – martyrs ready to sacrifice their lives for Islam’s religious war, Jihad. “It’s a very cruel education,” says Yaron. “Most of it is structured around death. You were forced to remember every morning that your ultimate goal was to return to the ground as quickly as possible. So it’s walking in cemeteries, being taken to see terrorists killed by the IDF, kissing them – their hands, their feet – to get inspiration, so we’d want to be killed like them.”
Yaron Avraham
There were no desks or beds in the mosque. Four hundred students slept on the ground to get used to the idea of returning to the ground. During meals, they sat on the floor and ate with their hands. Normal childhood activities, like listening to music, were strictly forbidden. There was no room for individuality. Children who were naturally left-handed were forced to eat with their right hands. Most of the day was spent memorizing the Koran.
The highlight of this education, recalls Yaron, was lying in an open grave in the middle of the night while their teachers would stand over them and read verses from the Koran “to evoke the feeling of the moment of ascension, when the soul rises to Heaven… Personally, it took me almost 15 years to get over that experience.”
Any misbehavior was strictly punished. “There was an incident of two children, 13-year-olds, who were suspected of being intimate with each other,” says Yaron. “They pulled us out of bed at 4 a.m., explained what these boys were accused of, and cut off their heads right in front of us.”
Yaron stayed in the mosque for five years. “I never got used to it,” he says. “It only got harder. I didn’t connect to this education.” Yaron noticed contradictions in his studies and began asking questions.
A central theme of Yaron’s education was hatred of Jews. “They told us that Jews are bloodthirsty vampires who rob, rape, murder, steal. They told us that the Jew is the lowest creature, enemy #1, impure.” Killing Jews was considered a most admirable goal.
Of all the students at the mosque, Yaron was the only one who had been outside of Gaza and who had actually seen Jews. For his many questions, Yaron was severely beaten. Then his teachers transferred him to a different mosque, in Yatta, near Hebron, in the hopes of turning Yaron into a real shahid. He spent a 18 months in Yatta where the education was even more cruel than in Gaza.
At age 16, Yaron managed to escape from the mosque.
At first, he went home to Lod but his family was not happy to see him. His older brothers told him that it wasn’t his home anymore and that they didn’t want him there. His mother, an obedient Muslim woman, did not say a word in his defense. His father didn’t get involved either.
After two weeks, Yaron escaped from home and went to live in a Muslim cemetery. “This was the only place where I felt safe,” he says. “Nobody was going to look for me in a cemetery. I went out to look for food at night, in garbage cans, scraps, things like that.”
Yaron spent ten days at the cemetery. One night, as he was searching for food, Yaron met a Jewish man who offered to help him. “He saved my life,” says Yaron. “He gave me money and put me on a bus to Eilat.” There, another Jewish family took him in. They helped him get in touch with an organization for at-risk youth in Tel Aviv.
“I discovered something that was completely new to me,” Yaron says, “something that in Judaism, and in general in the western world, is taught from a young age – the sanctity of life. I discovered that I am allowed to live, I am allowed to dream. The Jews took me in. They didn’t ask questions. They didn’t care if I was Arab or not. They just let me stay in their home. They gave me food. They kept me safe from all my brothers. They kept me safe from dangers. These people instilled in me confidence, a certainty that I am a human being, like any other. They taught me to learn, to grow, to be human, to go to the beach, to have friends. I didn’t know how to behave with ordinary people, how to have a conversation with them. I didn’t even know how to hold a knife or a fork. They had to teach me everything, starting from scratch.”
Grateful to the Jewish people for all the help he’d received, Yaron decided to enlist in the Israeli army. “This was the only thing I could do to in return for the good that [Israeli Jews] did for me,” he says.
At first, the IDF recruitment office rejected him. “But I don’t give up easily,” says Yaron. Eventually, he enlisted and served in the elite Givati unit.
During his army service, Yaron was sent to Gaza. He was impressed with his fellow soldiers’ conduct toward the local residents. Israeli soldiers were nothing like the bloodthirsty monsters portrayed by his teachers. Just the opposite – they were ethical and principled. They would share food and drink with Gazan families. They didn’t kill anyone for no reason.
Once, Yaron’s unit came close to the same mosque where he was horribly abused only three years earlier. It was a difficult moment for Yaron. He desperately wanted to take revenge on his tormentors.
When Yaron saw the same teacher who had cruelly beaten him, he couldn’t hold himself back. “I raised my gun and was about to shoot,” he says.
Yaron’s commander grabbed his gun away from him. He spoke to him and calmed him down.
“It’s an amazing thing,” says Yaron. “The person who saved the life of the one who taught me to kill Jews just because they are Jews – he is an officer in the IDF.” Later, in a heart-to-heart conversation, this officer taught Yaron to “sanctify life, not death. That was when I decided that I want to join this nation.”
It was a long journey. After the army, Yaron returned to Tel Aviv and studied to become a chef. Then he went to what he describes as “Heaven on earth” – Yeshiva Machon Meir in Jerusalem where he underwent the conversion process to become Jewish.
Today, Yaron is married and the father of three daughters. He is a popular speaker and has been invited to speak at colleges and universities, as well as various communities in Israel. Yaron is currently working on a book about his experiences.
“As I learned more about Judaism, I began to understand that all the darkness I went through in my life can be transformed into great light. Many people go through hard times and come close to despair, but through hearing my story they find strength and perseverance.”
Shortly after the brutal Hamas terrorist attack, Yaron shared, “What happened on October 7th is not even the height of their cruelty. They have many more methods. They hate Jews simply because they are Jews. There is no other reason. They say it’s because of the occupation, but in the Koran it is written that the Land of Israel was given to the people of Israel. We were taught blind hatred with no rhyme or reason. It’s just a religious matter.
“I literally left the grave. I am alive, and I have a mission – to bring the truth to light. When I was in the army, and even now, in the reserves, I stand for the people who sanctify life. I want to fight for the truth.”
Yaron warns the world about the threat of radical Islam, which, he says, “is also spreading in Europe and other places. For years I have been warning anyone who would listen that they are capable of the horrors we saw them commit [on October 7th]. People didn’t believe me. They told me I was exaggerating.
“People think this is Israel’s problem. People should thank Israel, because Israel is fighting the war for the whole world. Israel is fighting for the sanctity of life.”
Sources:
The Gazan who escaped from Hamas and converted to Judaism: "I was supposed to be one of the killers", Kan News
The story of Yaron Avraham, Jihadist who converted to Judaism, interviewed by Dr. Mordechai Kedar (Hebrew), in four parts:
A very up-lifting story
He's one in a million (literally )
WOW, thank you for this amazing piece about this extraordinary man!
Radical Islam seems to be a gangland religion with major psychotic disorders. They enforce their perverted and angry scripture with an iron fist and rewards of death---which in itself is the only way to escape its brutality.
Yaron Avraham was fortunate to have escaped from his "captivity" and brought back to Life by a Jewish family. He was ready to find some redemption from the criminality of his home and community---his religion---and Israel (and hopefully the ignorant world) will profit from Yaron's heart.
He not only saved his life, but his sanity. The things he described are done to children, create very sick, psychopathic adults. I don't believe the "Palestinian State" should be permitted to exist in any form. It is truly based upon evil.
A truly remarkable person. By far most people subjected to the abuse and hatred that he was would be incapable of having a 'normal' life.
Adults exposed to severe trauma are significantly at risk of PTSD. How much more so for a child deprived of love, pleasures of childhood, and learning.
Again I must express my wonder for his strength. What might he have achieved had he had the advantage of a normal childhood.
True, but he has achieved a great deal already by turning his back on a fanaticism that sanctifies hatred of innocents and glorifies death; instead he embraced life and truth.