Zohar Chamberlain-Regev, a former Israeli Jew who lost her leg in an accident near Jerusalem, was the only woman on last week\u2019s flotilla intercepted on its way to Gaza who still holds Israeli citizenship. Israeli authorities are handling her case separately from the other flotilla participants. While the others were deported from Israel after the widely publicized visit by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Regev was brought before a judge at the Ashkelon Magistrate\u2019s Court on suspicion of infiltration offenses, obstruction of an investigation and endangering public security. She was released on a personal bond of 5,000 shekels and banned from entering Gaza for 60 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zohar Regev, 54, was born and raised in Kibbutz Kfar HaHoresh, near Nazareth, a secular left-wing kibbutz. Her parents, both born in Tel Aviv, were educators; her father worked in the cowshed and chicken coop and went through a political shift after the Six-Day War, coming to the conclusion that \u201cthese territories must not be held.\u201d She describes a home that was aware of the injustice done to Palestinians, though not necessarily one with a clearly anti-Zionist outlook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a teenager, she studied in Ginegar and at the high school in Yifat. She was supposed to spend a year of national service with the Working and Studying Youth movement in Jerusalem\u2019s Gilo neighborhood, but at age 17 she was seriously injured in a bus accident while leaving Jerusalem and lost a leg. She has described that loss as a \u201cgift\u201d that spared her from serving in the IDF. Regev later studied economics and took part in an honors program at the University of Haifa, where she was admitted based on a high psychometric exam score despite not completing high school, but she did not finish the degree. She later worked as a secretary, tried to establish a community in the Galilee, worked at Kibbutz Lotan in the Arava and volunteered at Kfar Rafael, a community for people with special needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2004, she left Israel and lived in Spain for 14 years, where she was involved in coordinating the Spanish campaign for the Gaza flotillas. She owned the women\u2019s boat to Gaza, \u201cZaytouna-Oliva,\u201d which was stopped in 2016. In the 2018 flotilla, Regev headed the boat \u201cAl-Awda,\u201d meaning \u201cThe Return.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After her years in Spain, Regev lived for about two and a half years in Bethlehem, where she volunteered at a natural history museum, lived with Palestinian families in refugee camps and became closely familiar with life under \u201cthe occupation.\u201d She converted to Islam and describes the move as a spiritual experience and a declaration of belonging. Regev is married to a Muslim man from Bethlehem. She currently lives in Germany, holds German citizenship and receives social support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regev defines herself as an \u201canarchist\u201d and refuses to \u201cnormalize the occupation\u201d by living in Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zohar Chamberlain-Regev, a former Israeli Jew who lost her leg in an accident near Jerusalem, was the only woman on last week\u2019s flotilla intercepted on its way to Gaza who still holds Israeli citizenship. Israeli authorities are handling her case separately from the other flotilla participants. While the others were deported from Israel after the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":181721,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"9320","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10327,9320,9314],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-jerusalem-news","category-main-item"],"acf":{"subtitle":"Zohar Regev-Chamberlain, a former Israeli Jew who joined the Gaza-bound flotilla, lost her leg years ago in an accident near Jerusalem and later described it as a \u201cgift\u201d that spared her from IDF service"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181723,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181720\/revisions\/181723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}