Wearing a “F*ck Hamas” T-shirt, necklaces with maps of Israel and hostages’ names, and a tattoo reading “Am Yisrael Chai,” Nick Matau might appear to be just another American Jew explaining Israel on social media through videos and livestreams. In his case, he reaches 50,000 followers on TikTok (“I used to have 100,000, but TikTok closed my account when I started speaking up for Israel and Zionism.”)
However, the 32-year-old Californian isn’t Jewish—and didn’t even grow up in a Jewish environment. His only connection to the Jewish people is through the man who raised him from age one, a Samoan, who instilled in him a love for the Jewish people.
“He taught me history and how important it is to support Israel,” Nick explains. “He’s a large Samoan man who occasionally yells at people hanging Palestinian flags in the street, calling them terrorism-supporters. He strongly supports what I’m doing, but urges me to be careful.”
Q: Be careful of what?
A: There’s tremendous hate on social media. I receive death threats daily and statements saying Hitler didn’t finish the job, unfortunately.
Beyond the harsh messages, Nick also receives threats from people claiming to know where he lives and promising to “eliminate” him. Nick welcomes them.
“I tell them, ‘Yes, I’m here, and I have a gun in my drawer,'” he says. “I want to be prepared. I have cameras around the house. There were cases where people called leaving ‘Free Palestine’ messages, and one woman exposed my ex-wife’s and child’s personal information. I went to the police, but they said they couldn’t do anything until she actually does something—which I think is really stupid.”
For 12 years, Nick served in the U.S. Navy as a nuclear engineer, returning to civilian life about a year ago. While he always supported Israel, he rarely discussed it in his social-media videos until May 2021.
“When Hamas started launching rockets and I felt TikTok was flooded with ‘Free Palestine’ content without enough support for Israel, I knew I had to speak up,” he explains. “Every day I learn something new about Israel. I always knew antisemitism existed, but I didn’t realize how prevalent it was. From the moment I started talking about antisemitism or Zionism, I received enormous hate from followers and blocks from TikTok, but I didn’t care. I learned more, read more, speak with many Muslims from Arab countries and understand I’m on the right side. Before this, I was never blocked once, but since then I’ve lost 15 TikTok accounts.”
Q: Did you reach out to them about this?
A: I emailed them and filed an appeal. I even made my main account with 53,000 followers private recently because I had more than 30 videos removed. They restored all but three, with TikTok claiming I was “promoting hate and supporting a hate organization.” The IDF is considered a hate organization? Most of the time they just respond that I’m violating guidelines.
Early in the war, when pro-Palestinian activists set up encampments at universities and severely harassed Jewish students, Nick and his friend, Bracha, who often joins his TikTok livestreams, decided to see firsthand what was happening at Berkeley.
“I went to their encampments and stood in front of 100 pro-Palestinian protesters with their flags, waved an Israeli flag and started debating them and disproving their claims,” he recounts. “They didn’t know how to respond, and after a few minutes their ‘leader’ came out and told them not to talk to me. I was busy arguing and didn’t notice one of them opening his jacket to show Bracha, who was standing on the other side, that he had a gun. She left immediately and called to warn me to leave. We went to file a police report, but they didn’t do anything.”
Nick doesn’t rule out conversion to Judaism. He first visited Israel over a year ago and returned to the United States just days before the Oct. 7 attack.
“I wanted to visit Israel when I started my activism,” he recalls, “but I was in the Navy, and they always found different reasons not to approve my travel. I first arrived in Israel with my fiancée, Danielle, just before Yom Kippur last year, and it was an amazing experience. We visited Masada, the Dead Sea, Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan, leaving shortly before Oct. 7. On the day of the attack, I received a call from a good friend, ‘Hebrew Hammer’—the first Zionist I met on TikTok—who called to say Israel was under attack. I replied,’What else is new?’ and he said this time was different. Then it got worse moment by moment, and the first thing we thought after crying was that we wanted to return there.”
Nick met his fiancée online, thanks to his videos.
“Danielle is an American Jew who moved to Israel at 21 and stayed for 13 years. She happened to see one of my videos about Israel and commented on it. I thought she was really cute and sent her a message, and things moved quickly from there.”
Q: Are there plans to return or move to Israel?
A: I have an 11-year-old child. When he goes to college, I’d be more than happy to move to Israel.
Q: Have you ever considered converting to Judaism?
A: When I was stationed in Guam, there was an Australian rabbi I talked to about it, and he said it’s better not to because my voice as a non-Jew is stronger. But on my third visit to discuss conversion, he promised to start working on my conversion process. Shortly after, I left Guam and didn’t pursue it further. I identify as a Noahide, and I’m very open to conversion. When I feel God puts things in front of me, I don’t resist them.
TikTok responded to a request for comment: “We operate at all times to strengthen our defense mechanisms in order to keep the platform safe and clean from content that could harm the user community, and we have zero tolerance toward violators of community guidelines. We monitor the content through a combination of technologies and a team of 40,000 human monitors. Every report about an inappropriate video is treated with full seriousness, and the algorithm does not promote content of one side over another side.”
Originally published by Israel Hayom.
