Hannah Mermelstein is a librarian working at a Quaker school in Philadelphia. In 2009, she was asked to co-teach the B’nai Mitzvah class at Kolot Chayeinu by Kolot’s educational director Ora Wise, who she knew through Palestine solidarity organizing. Hannah’s relationship with Kolot began as an educator, but, she eventually  began attending high holiday services as well. Her wife, who is not Jewish, encouraged them to join a synagogue. After hearing Rabbi Ellen deliver a speech in which she asserted that Kolot needed to be a space welcoming of non-Jews, queers, and anti-Zionists, they knew they were in the right place and became members. Hannah was involved in conversations that turned into the Israel/Palestine Working Group, and she became its co-chair and at times sole chair. The group had open conversations sharing their own lived experiences and opinions, and organized discussions and events for the larger Kolot community. Hannah first traveled to Palestine in 2003 and worked with the International Women’s Peace Service. She later co-founded Birthright Unplugged, an organization that brought people from the West to Palestine and shows the realities of the occupation and the displacement of Palestinians. The organization also had a Birthright Replugged program, which brought Palestinian children from refugee camps to visit the places their grandparents fled. Hannah returned to the US and went back to school to become a librarian and has become a parent. From her time at Kolot, she is most proud of the survey conducted by the Israel/Palestine Working Group that gathered information about members’ relationship with Israel/Palestine. Three words she would use to describe herself are passionate, anti-Zionist, and tired.

In this interview, Hannah tells her story of how Kolot’s acceptance of ‘queers, anti-Zionists, and non-Jews’ made it possible for her to return to organized Judaism after many years away. She candidly describes her “break-up with Zionism” and the decades she’s dedicated to the Palestinian solidarity and education work that followed, including the more than 30 delegations to Palestine she’s led. She recounts her time chairing Kolot’s Israel Palestine committee in its most active years and how she navigated the tensions of the ‘open tent.’ Hannah details the deep network care that Kolot fosters with honest and raw stories of how the Kolot community has supported her and her family.

“A place I could be” Hannah Mermelstein describes how she found Kolot, first as an educator and then as a member, marking her return to organized Judaism.

“Shepherding this community” Hannah Mermelstein describes chairing the Israel Palestine Committee and her hopes for a more concrete statement from Kolot even within the ‘open tent.’

“Network of care” Hannah Mermelstein describes bringing her second child into the world at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and the amazing couple that did their laundry for months.