Actress, singer, dancer & social media activist Montana Tucker is visiting Israel to inaugurate a special project - "Children of October 7" - a unique film telling the story of October 7th as heard from young children.
The film was premiered at the President's Residence and the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem, and attended by President Isaac Herzog, who hosted Tucker at the Museum for a tour of the "6:29: From Darkness to Light" exhibition."
Speaking with Arutz Sheva – Israel National News during her visit, Tucker said, “Since October 7th I've dedicated my life and my platforms to standing for Israel, calling for the release of the hostages and sharing the truth about what is really happening. I've been to Israel four times since October 7th and I've done a lot of really powerful incredible work, but I would say this documentary is probably the most important thing I have ever done and could ever do. Everyone has their opinions about the war and about the conflict, but when you hear directly from these children, these are their personal testimonies, this is what they actually went through."
"They don't know about the conflict, they had nothing to do with it. They were home in bed, innocent, and they either got kidnapped from their homes or they got tortured or got to see their parents being killed by Hamas, right in front of them," she explains.
Tucker believes that, “With all the misinformation and propaganda that is going on in this world, I think when you hear directly from these children, everyone's opinion is going to be altered and they're going to really understand what happened.”
Tucker describes her meetings with these young heroes, and says, “I've done a lot of work with children in the past, through dance and through music. So I've always felt a special connection with them and meeting these children specifically, who were ages 11 to 17 when this happened. The strength and resilience that they had in them on that day and still have in them is something that I still can't process and understand, because they had to witness such atrocities.”
She says, “My grandparents are Holocaust survivors and my grandmother was 13 years old when she got taken to Auschwitz and saw her mother get beaten and dragged to the gas chamber. I heard her stories my whole life about the Holocaust, about what she went through, about what her family went through and to now have it happen again and hear directly from these children, it's extremely personal to me and it's just amazing to me how incredible and strong these children are.”
“The documentary is not out yet, but I have posted small clips on my social media and it already has millions and millions and millions of views. If you read through the comments you'll really see people saying, ‘This really affected me deeply or this changed my perspective and it's not just Jews and it's not just people who are necessarily pro-Israel that are seeing this content and they're really getting influenced by it,” says Tucker.
Tucker, in Israel also as part of the activity of the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), explains that “they're an incredible organization that organized my last trip, when I did a huge dance video at the Nova Music Festival site, with actual Nova Music Festival survivors and Moran Stella Yanai, a released hostage. I think that I had a hard time combining my worlds at the beginning. I had my dancing, my music, my singing, my acting on one side, and then I had my activism, on another side, During the last trip with CAM, we found a way to mix those worlds. People went to the Nova Music Festival site to dance and we honored them by dancing. I was with a dance group who lost three of their members at the Nova site, so this time we're doing more meaningful videos, with dance, with music and it's they're going to be extremely powerful.”
She continues to describe her work. “I'm doing one video with an incredible dance company and we’re having released hostages in the video, as well as family members of hostages that are still in Gaza. So it's going to be incredibly powerful and I'm trying to do everything I can to continue to bring awareness in all different ways. I think doing it through dance is a really powerful way.”
Tucker admits that “every trip that I come to Israel, I leave feeling more inspired and motivated to continue speaking out. We all know that it's not easy, but every time I come to Israel, I'm fueled even more. The people that I meet, the resilience in the people that I meet, it just inspires me and forces me to keep going. There's no other option. When you meet these people here and you see what they have gone through and what they continue to go through, there's no other option. So I have to continue fighting every way that I can.”