JCC- Amir Tibon: The Gates of Gaza

$45 ticket + book, or $55 Couple’s ticket + 1 book”

A gripping first-person account of how one Israeli grandfather helped rescue two generations of his family on October 7, 2023—a saga that reveals the deep tensions and systemic failures behind Hamas’s attacks that day.

On the morning of October 7, Amir Tibon and his wife were awakened by mortar rounds exploding near their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a progressive Israeli community less than a mile from Gaza City. Soon, they were holding their two young daughters in the family’s reinforced safe room, urging them not to cry as gunfire echoed just outside the door. With his cell phone battery running low, Amir texted his father: “The girls are behaving really well, but I’m worried they’ll lose patience soon and Hamas will hear us.”

Some 45 miles north, Amir’s parents had just cut short an early morning swim along the shores of Tel Aviv. Now, they jumped in their Jeep and sped toward Nahal Oz, armed only with a pistol but intent on saving their family at all costs.

In The Gates of Gaza, Amir Tibon tells this harrowing story in full for the first time. He describes his family’s ordeal—and the bravery that ultimately led to their rescue—alongside the histories of the place they call home and the systems of power that have kept them and their neighbors in Gaza in harm’s way for decades.

Woven throughout is Tibon’s own expertise as a longtime international correspondent, as well as more than thirty original interviews: with residents of his kibbutz, with the Israeli soldiers who helped to wrest it from the hands of Hamas, and with experts on Gaza, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the failed peace process. More than one family’s odyssey, The Gates of Gaza is the intimate story of a tight-knit community and the broader saga of war, occupation, and hostility between two national movements—a conflict that has not yet extinguished the enduring hope for peace.

Author bio:

Amir Tibon is an award-winning diplomatic correspondent for Haaretz, Israel’s paper of record, and has previously served as the paper’s correspondent in Washington, D.C., and as a senior editor for its English edition. He is the author of The Last Palestinian: The Rise and Reign of Mahmoud Abbas (co-authored with Grant Rumley), the first-ever biography of the leader of the Palestinian Authority. He, his wife, and their two young daughters were evacuated from their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz after the October 7 attack, and are currently living in temporary housing in north-central Israel.

Amir Tobin will be in conversation with Joel Schwitzer. 

Joel Schwitzer has worked in Jewish nonprofit management and fundraising for nearly 30 years He joined AJC in 2015 and leads the Dallas Regional Office, which covers North and Central Texas as well as Oklahoma. In that capacity, Joel guides the advocacy, leadership development and fundraising efforts for AJC throughout the region. He has provided testimony on family separation to the Texas Mexican American Legislative Caucus, worked to build several diverse coalitions including the Community of Conscience, Jewish/Latino Alliance and DFW Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council. He is a prolific op ed writer, with columns published in The Dallas Morning News, Austin American Statesman, Fort Worth Star Telegram and Texas Jewish Post.

Prior to joining AJC, Joel spent time providing professional leadership to numerous Jewish organizations, including Hillel, the Jewish Federations of Dallas and Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and the Anti-Defamation League. He holds B.A. in psychology from the University of Arizona. Joel serves on the Texas Advisory Committee of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition; is part of the Texas Holocaust and Antisemitism Advisory Commission speakers bureau and He serves on the Board of the DFW Airport Interfaith Advisory Council and on the Interfaith Task Force of Texas Representative Salman Bhojani. Previously, he served as Chair of the Leadership and Communications Subcommittee of the City of Dallas Task Force on Welcoming Communities and Immigrant Affairs. In 2009, Joel was named one of Champaign-Urbana’s 40 under 40 by Central Illinois Business magazine. He is married to Beri, Executive Director of the Dallas Jewish Historical Society. They are parents of identical twins Chana and Miryam.