On a recent trip to Israel, Goldie Ghamari, the first woman of Iranian descent to become a member of a Canadian provincial parliament, stood in the same room in Kibbutz Nir Oz where two Hamas terrorists posted a woman’s murder on Facebook. Her relatives learned that she was murdered from the live stream that terrorists posted on her page.
“We were sitting in her living room one year later, and the devastation was still there,” Ghamari told JNS. “It wasn’t just about murdering innocent people. They also looted her house, and you could see all the clothes and blankets and various things just tossed on the floor. But then they cut the gas pipe and set the house on fire.”
It was clear that “what they had done was not a resistance. It was to inflict maximum pain, maximum damage, and take great delight in doing so,” Ghamari added. “They were proud. They were calling their parents back home and bragging about how many Jews they had killed. I remember just standing there surrounded by this. I felt sick to my stomach that there are people in Canada who call them ‘resistance fighters.’”
The independent Ontario legislator, who escaped Iran’s Islamist regime as a child, found herself standing in solidarity with Israel, drawing parallels between the struggles of both nations against extremism and experiencing moments of profound cultural resonance in a land that felt surprisingly familiar.
The staunch advocate for Israel became prominent on the Jewish community’s radar when she delivered an emotional speech before the Ontario legislature in support of Israel on Oct. 17, 2023.
Upon her return from her first visit to Israel last month, JNS met with Ghamari over lunch at the Ontario legislature’s restaurant to discuss her five-day tour with a delegation of prominent figures from the Iranian diaspora community and her nine-day solo exploration.
The Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry invited the group and told Ghamari that the trip would offer “a comprehensive introduction to Israel, its society, history and culture” and to “commemorate the Oct. 7 genocidal massacre” on the yahrzeit, or one-year anniversary.
As part of the delegation tour, Ghamari visited the Nova festival site, where she said that “the sheer savagery and barbarity of Hamas terrorists is horrifying.”
Her trip also featured positive experiences, she told JNS, like placing a note in the Western Wall wishing for a free Iran. She also spoke with high school students at Begin High School in Rosh HaAyin about the distinction between Iranians and the Islamic Regime occupying Iran.
She also “passed along the message of peace and friendship on behalf of Iranians to Israelis,” she added.
‘Tears in their eyes’
Ghamari told JNS that she delivered an hour-long talk to some 350 people at a synagogue on Sukkot upon the invitation of Dan Feferman, executive director of Sharaka, a fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute and a reserve major in the Israel Defense Forces. (He also invited her to celebrate the holiday in his home, she said.)
Ghamari discussed why Iranians have stood with Israel historically and in the present.
“Iranians and Israelis are both fighting the same enemy—the Islamic regime and this rise in Islamofascist ideology,” she said.
“A lot of people in the audience had tears in their eyes,” she told JNS. “They’re well familiar with the rise in antisemitism, and so to hear someone speak out so clearly about it and also reassure the congregation that there are non-Jewish people who support them and stand behind them—I had so many hugs. It was amazing.”
On a visit to Yad Vashem, she saw echoes in the exhibitions about “what happened in the beginning” and what has been taking place back home.
“Seeing the signs leading up to the Holocaust—the targeting of Jewish businesses, the antisemitism, the hate behavior. Even the messaging of ‘go back where you came from,’” she said. “What’s scary is the antisemitic creep that we’re seeing in Toronto, because it’s starting so slowly.”
“One step becomes normalized, and then people go to the next step,” she told JNS.
An impromptu experience unfurling flags at an Israeli government building—Ghamari taking an Israeli flag and Knesset member Sharren Haskel bearing the Lion and Sun pre-revolutionary Iranian flag—gave Ghamari hope. (The experience required special permission from the Knesset speaker.)
“That just showed we’re united, and our peoples want peace and harmony,” she told JNS. “Our fight is with the Islamofascists.”
“Visiting Israel as an Iranian is very similar to visiting my sister’s house,” she added. “It’s not my house, but there’s so much familiarity there. We have shared memories, shared history.”
