Connecting Gaza is a community support group dedicated to aiding families in Gaza who are struggling to survive an ongoing genocide perpetuated by Israel and the United States of America.
Our story began in 2023 with small group chats following the Israeli assault on Gaza. Each chat became a lifeline connecting us to a family in Gaza. As their needs grew increasingly urgent throughout 2024, our grassroots effort evolved into a broader, structured initiative under the leadership of Rabbi David Mivasair.
Rooted in compassion and resilience, Connecting Gaza provides emotional support, micro-financing, essential resources, and community assistance to Gazan families through all available means. We currently support over twenty families in Gaza. Through our trusted friends and partners, we also help organize clean water deliveries and maintain a free community pharmacy in North Gaza. We are entirely volunteer-run, with the sole mission of helping fellow human beings who are fighting for their lives against all odds.
Our Gazan families, along with thousands of others in Gaza, have lost their homes, family members, and all means of livelihood amidst the ongoing genocide. Through our community of activists, counselors, educators, doctors, and scientists across Canada, the USA, and the UK, we ensure our Gazan families don't fight this battle alone. We work to amplify their voices while providing all possible assistance.
Retired after serving for 25 years as the spiritual leader of three different synagogues in Pennsylvania and British Columbia, Rabbi David has been focused for years on doing all he can to support the Palestinian people’s struggle for justice and for survival. Now an anti-Zionist Jew, in the past, Rabbi David was a committed liberal Zionist and lived for four years in Israel. Today he lives in Hamilton, Ontario, and is an active member of Independent Jewish Voices Canada and Jewish Voice for Peace in the USA.
Jen is a semi-retired family physician, veteran, and mother of triplet toddlers, living on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation. She only learned in October 2023 the history and the realities of the Palestinian struggle, and since then she has been committed to helping as much as possible. She believes in Land Back, both in Palestine and in Canada.
Jesse is a writer, dreamer and microbe herder, gardening on Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and shíshálh territory. He has had a lifelong connection with Palestine. As a diaspora Jew, with family connections to the region, he has seen first hand what apartheid and occupation has done. Jesse is deeply committed to justice, equality, and community care—and truly believes a better world is possible.
Jasleen is a cancer researcher by training, and lives in Vancouver, Canada on unceded occupied territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. As a person whose own ancestors lived through the British occupation of India, she feels a moral obligation to using her voice and actions to advocate for justice, dignity, and the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people. **
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