“Of course I didn’t wear high heels into Gaza: I’m not crazy!” Julia Haart, a fashion designer and star of the Netflix reality show My Unorthodox Life, said with a laugh.
Speaking after she spent the day with IDF troops in Gaza, Haart didn’t mind joking about her obsession with footwear – the petite designer is known for wearing stilettos, which she ditched for flat boots during her war-zone visit – but she came to Israel earlier this month for a very serious reason:
“I thought it was important to physically show up, and take the risk of being here because I don’t take freedom for granted,” she said. “I fought very hard for my freedom. And when I see people here, they’re not fighting for land, or wealth, or power – they’re fighting for the right to exist – and that’s why I felt it was important for me to come here.
“When [the October 7 massacre] happened, I felt I had to come. These are my people: How could I not come?”Haart is one of the procession of celebrities who have visited Israel in recent weeks to show their support, among them comic Jerry Seinfeld and actors Michael Rapaport and Debra Messing.
Haart’s series, My Unorthodox Life, chronicled how she grew up ultra-Orthodox in the US, married young, had four children, and then left the fold. She remarried and subsequently divorced Silvio Scaglia, with whom she ran his fashion and modeling talent management company Elite World Group.
Although she is no longer religiously observant, she has always put her Jewish identity front and center – which led her to make this visit, with two of her children, Shlomo and Miriam. Her youngest son, Aron, is studying in an Israeli yeshiva.
Not afraid to visit Israel
WHILE VIEWERS of her show know that she has a luxurious lifestyle, she said she wasn’t afraid of visiting Israel (and even Gaza) during this war. “Strangely enough, this is the world we live in; this is my third war zone this year,” she said. In January, she visited Bakmut, in Ukraine, and in the summer, she went to Kyiv, to bring attention to the plight of abused women – “and, literally, the hotel I stayed in got blown up the day after I left.”
Since she came to Israel on this trip, Haart has visited Kibbutz Be’eri, the site of some of the most horrific violence of the October 7 massacre.
She has also used her social-media presence to “show the diversity of Israel,” by spending time with trans activists from the Druze community and on the West Bank; visiting a school that trains women from all backgrounds and religions who have fled abusive marriages to be hairdressers; and learning about an organization, Surfing 4 Peace, that promotes coexistence through surfing.
Haart also spoke at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv on behalf of the families of those taken hostage by Hamas and held in Gaza, and had Shabbat dinner with the family of Omer Wenkert, a 22-year-old hostage who suffers from colitis. “Without medication and under stressful circumstances, colitis can kill you, and he’s received no medication,” she said.
“I went into this family’s house...” she said, pausing for a moment as she teared up. “And every woman in this family was a nurse; the only woman who wasn’t a nurse was a social worker. All these people are in the helping professions. They treated Muslims, Jews, Christians, anybody. These people don’t have a bad bone in their body.”
During the dinner, one of the parents’ phones beeped and, for a moment, all 20 people went completely silent. “His mother told me, every time their phone rings or she gets a text, their hearts almost stop beating, because they don’t know if they’re going to get good news or, God forbid, bad news about Omer.”
Looking at his room, she realized, “He’s a kid, he’s such a great kid, how can you justify harming people like this?”
BUT IN spite of all she has seen and done here, nothing quite prepared her for the reality of crossing into Gaza.She described her day, which started with going to an IDF army base, where she was equipped with a bullet-proof vest and a helmet before crossing the border.
The experience of visiting Gaza
Once they crossed into Gaza, “We went house-to-house with troops, who showed us the weapons they found in so many houses. So many guns, right there in these private homes – and in one, there was even a grenade launcher!”
In another home, she said, “We saw these sweet pictures of a family and children. And there was an album – and in it was a picture of a five-year-old child with an AK-47. This little kid holding this massive gun with pride!” she said, shocked.
At the end of the day, she was impressed not only by the number of weapons she saw that were kept in private homes, but also by the quality and diversity of the IDF soldiers. “This is what I really wish people around the world understood. The soldiers I met are proof positive that very different groups of people can coexist and live and love together.
“The world should be celebrating the IDF,” the Gaza witness urged. “I met soldiers who were Christian, Muslim, Druze, [and] Jews – women and men, gay and straight – and I felt this palpable love from everyone I saw.”
She said she felt that the army was acting morally: “What other army in the f***ing world tells people where they’re going next?”
Haart is heading back home in early January, and she is concerned about rising antisemitism in the US and around the world. Her daughter Miriam is a graduate student at New York University, and “since October 7, she’s terrified to walk on the campus.”
In the end, like much in her life, her work to support Israel is a family affair and expresses her deepest emotions. “I’m not a military person, I’m not a nurse, I don’t have any of that knowledge or training. So how do I help?
“I have an audience,” the reality show star said. “And my children have an audience – and our combined audience is close to three million people. And so to me, it is my responsibility to be here, and not far away in my comfortable couch where I’m safe. Here – with people who are risking their lives.
“The IDF is fighting for the soul of humanity.”