Singer, songwriter, actress, dancer, and Jewish TikTok influencer Montana Tucker spoke to Israel National News - Arutz Sheva, during her current visit to Israel.
“There's nothing like being in Israel. I've been traveling all over, but being back here in Israel feeling the love and the spirit, and the resilience and the pride of Israelis are just so special,” Tucker says about her trip.
Montana Tucker participated in the rally on behalf of the hostages, held at the Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, and sang Israel’s national anthem, Hatikva. “This tragedy doesn't even make sense. I talk about this every day, and I've met with so many families, but to be there last night, surrounded by so many people, it felt like all of Israel was there and I wish the whole world would be acting and screaming together, the way that everyone was last night. It should just be common sense to see what is going on and the fact that the whole world doesn't get it really boggles my mind. That's why I need to continue to do everything I can to make sure the whole world gets on the same page."
She continued: "The fact that the whole world isn't screaming, 'Bring Them Home,' is an issue and I think people are losing sight of how this started. They're losing sight of the fact that these are innocent people that had nothing to do with the conflict or nothing to do with the war and they got caught up in this. It's not fair and we need to end this now.”
This is the second time Tucker has visited Israel since October 7th, and she will be dancing and recording, as well as meeting families and wounded. Describing what sets the two visits apart, she said: “My last visit in December was really heavy and it was important to show the world that I met with so many survivors, sharing their stories. I met with hostages who were released, sharing their stories. But I feel like my life has been so separate lately, where I've been separating my dance and music from my activism, and I wanted to find a way to bring them together and show the world also how incredible Israel is. Israel is a place that has so many people of different religions, different walks of life, different ethnicities, races, etc., living together here in peace. So it was important for me to do that, and I did it with dance and music. I believe dance and music speak when words can't. I truly believe everyone's going to be very impacted by what we did. We went to the Nova site with Nova survivors and we did a dance dedicated to them. Today we danced at the Tower of David with all different religions and this is what the world needs to see; the unity that is in Israel.”
On the worsening situation of global antisemitism, Tucker believes that “it's 100% getting worse and unfortunately there's so much propaganda. That is exactly why I'm physically here in Israel and why I think it made an impact the last time I came in December. Because of all the propaganda I wanted to physically stand here and physically be here, so you guys can't deny that this physically happened. For me, it was really, really important to show that. I went to the college campuses in the US. I went to UCLA. It's terrible what is going on there. People don't even know what they're chanting or what they're supporting. I tried to have a conversation with them to see if I could understand, but they had no idea what they were doing. So, it's important for me to physically be here in Israel and show the world the truth.”
She is deeply involved in the commemoration of the Holocaust and looks today at the comparison between the Holocaust and the October 7 massacre. “Unfortunately, they are way too similar. I grew up with Holocaust survivor grandparents and I heard their stories my whole life and there's a specific story that my Zadie, my grandpa, told me about. His whole life he had friends that weren't Jewish and the second that all the announcements came out about how Jews were terrible and Jews were the reason all the problems were happening in the world and then the next day these friends started spitting on him, beating him up and they said, ‘You dirty Jew.’ Those are the exact same stories that are happening today. So ‘Never Again,’ ‘Never Forget,’ is now and that's why every single person in the world needs to take this seriously.”
Montana concluded by saying that, “Everyone needs to unite. Every single person. No matter what religion, what race, what ethnicity. We all need to unite against terrorism and against hate. Am Yisrael Chai.”