Last Saturday was a night that Montana Tucker, the singer/actress/dancer/social media influencer and Israel advocate, will always remember, because she took the stage at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv and sang “Ha Tikvah,” Israel’s national anthem, surrounded by families of the hostages Hamas is still holding in Gaza.
“I have sung ‘Ha Tikvah’ many times before, but I’ve never sung it in IsraeI, so to sing it here, in the Holy Land, I knew it would be emotional,” said Tucker, who despite her cowgirl-sounding name and corn-fed all-American looks, is Jewish. She is just wrapping up her second visit to Israel since October 7, a trip sponsored by Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), a global coalition of more than 700 partner organizations and three million people, all focused on fighting hatred against Jews.
“But to stand there on stage . . . and to sing holding hands with the family members, with three powerful women who I’ve had the pleasure to meet and get to know, on this trip and the trip before . . . I was not nervous, but it was a big moment where I had to do justice to all the words of the song, to do all the families justice by singing it with them and they gave me the strength by holding my hand up there, and they’re just so incredible.” Released hostages Moran Stela Yanai, Yocheved Lifshitz, and Raz Ben Ami were among those she has become close to on her visits.
Bring them home
It was an especially charged rally, coming shortly after the news that the IDF had recovered the bodies of several hostages murdered in captivity, Shani Louk, Itzhak Gelertner, Amit Buskilla, and Ron Benjamin. The rally featured video clips from former US Senator Hillary Clinton and TV’s Dr. Phil, as well as musical performances by Israel’s Eurovision contestant, Eden Golan, and singing stars Noga Erez, Lola Marsh, and Netta Barzilai. But even among all these luminaries, Tucker’s rendition of the national anthem was one of the highlights.
Tucker has had a packed schedule on this visit – she was last here in December – and before we spoke, she had just been to Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the communities that suffered the heaviest losses on October 7, and had stopped by the Sheba Medical Center to visit wounded soldiers. She has documented most of her activities on video and will be releasing this content to her social media soon.
Another important moment for her on this visit was a trip to the site of the Supernova Music Festival site at Re’im, where nearly 400 people were killed by Hamas and about 40 were kidnapped. There, she was able to perform in a dance piece to honor the memories of those who lost their lives, with dancers from the Lilach Friedman Dance Center, as well as survivors from the music festival. “I believe music and dance speak where words can’t, and I think we really showed that through this trip. . . It’s a really powerful piece.”
She visited the Benyamin Rotman Eshel Hanassi School in Merchavim to speak to friends of the late Noya Dan, a 13-year-old girl on the autism spectrum who was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas, along with her grandmother, Carmela Dan, on October 7.
“I wanted to bring back the light to Israel,” she said. “I think in the media now there are all these misconceptions and conspiracy theories and propaganda about Israel.” If she could clear up one misperception in particular about Israel, she said, it would be that, “People think it’s all white Jews that live in Israel and they don’t realize how many different people of all religions, races, and walks of life live in peace and coexist in peace.”
While she has built her following on her music and dance, even before October 7, she featured content inspired by her Jewish heritage, including a series of videos about Holocaust. Following October 7, she has focused often on Israel, wearing a dress with a huge yellow ribbon to show support for the hostages at the Grammy Awards, and posting often about Israel.
“I already received hate when I posted about the Holocaust, but there was nothing like the hate I received when I was talking about Israel. My grandparents are Holocaust survivors, they’re from Hungary and Romania, and people say to me, ‘Why do you fight so hard for Israel?’ and my grandparents have always told me that they believe the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened if Israel was around back then.”
She feels that both Jews and non-Jews should support Israel. “With the campus protests, people are waking up and realizing that the protests are not just anti-Israel, they’re anti-America as well.”
While she could post pro-Israel content from her home in the US, visiting Israel is important to her. “There’s nothing like being in Israel. I’d come here every day if I could,” she said. “I wish the whole world would, too. Everyone who’s against Israel, I bet none of them have actually been here. Every time I come here, I say the same thing, that everyone needs to physically come here and see for themselves how incredible this place is."
"The more people I meet here, the more it frustrates me with all the propaganda that’s out there about Israel. That’s why I know I need to be posting [about Israel] and I know I can do more from here because I’m physically visiting these places, I’m physically meeting these survivors that have been released, these soldiers that have been injured and who risk their lives every day, it’s just important for the world see this. . . Israelis are resilient and strong, and I want to show that, too.”