On March 5, the Chabad Center for Jewish Life at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign hosted Ari Kalker, a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), who spoke about his combat experiences in Gaza. Meanwhile, protesters across the street shouted “Up, Up with Liberation! Down, Down with Occupation!” The demonstrators held signs including “Ari Is a Murderer,” “War Criminals Not Welcome,” and “UC Jews for Ceasefire.”
Approximately 150 people, mostly students, attended the public talk. Chants from the group of around 20 demonstrators could be heard inside.
Kalker has served months at a time in Gaza since October 7, 2023, when Hamas fighters killed over 1,100 Israelis, including hundreds attending a concert, and took 251 more people hostage.
His main theme was that of good and evil: he said he is “good” and “they” are “evil.” “I am fighting a battle in defense of truth and good by coming here.”
Kalker began his 90-minute talk by addressing the protesters outside. He referred to them as the “elephant in the room” and “turtles on the street,” and called out the sign with his name on it: “He invested a lot of time and effort to put my name on a sign.” Then he claimed to be “insulted” that “only 14” people showed up to protest.
He was reluctant to speak on US college campuses, he said, after students across the country created pro-Palestinian tent encampments in the spring of 2024. UIUC students held an encampment on campus grounds for 13 days before disbanding last May 10.
Kalker shared several stories that evening, none more memorable to him than the role he played in retrieving the body of an IDF soldier.
“We got there and we’re supposed to wait now for a team from the Army rabbinate to come and collect the body. And I turned to the commander, and I turned to the rabbi, and said, ‘We’re going to sit here in the middle, completely exposed for the next two hours. We can just do this ourselves. It’s not that complicated.’ The rabbi looked at me and said, ‘Are you sure Ari?’ It’s not a small thing to prepare the body of anyone, let alone someone who’s been deceased for multiple months already and not in a refrigerator. ‘Are you sure you’re ready for this emotionally?’ the rabbi asked. I said I’m absolutely not. But it’s a great honor that I would never turn down. We then went into the room where he was, and we prepared his body for honorable transport and burial back in Israel. And to this day, I think that’s the greatest honor I’ve ever had in my entire life.”
Kalker referred to the protesters outside throughout his storytelling. “The more you represent and the more you defend what you believe in,” he said, “the louder they’re going to get and the more in-your-face they are going to be. And every time they do that, it’s a compliment to you and it’s a sign that you are doing something right.”
Kalker gave instructions to the audience before taking questions. “Whatever you want to hear, you can ask me anything. There’s no rules,” he said. “My only rules are your respect for one another. If you want to be respectful to me, I appreciate it. If not, that’s your problem. I reserve the right to not answer but I will do my best to answer pretty much anything. Anything you ask me, I can handle.”
The first question came from a community member. “When members of the IDF had occasion to go into residential buildings, did the IDF find weapons in homes that ostensibly are lived in by civilians?”
“You asked me when we went into the residential homes of Gazans civilians, did we find weapons?” Kalker repeated. “And I am going to expand the question and ask: are there really Gazan civilians? In every home we enter we find some form of weaponry. Sometimes an old rifle, sometimes a mortar shell, and sometimes a bullet. And we had this running joke that if you didn’t find anything, then it’s either because you didn’t search hard enough or you didn’t look in the kids’ room under the bed. That was their favorite hiding spot.”
A student who identified himself as Zach asked “With the people outside or those that protest often or speak out against you or speak for Palestine—with a small group of individuals, do you try to approach them and educate or ignore and live your life?”
“I believe in leading by example,” Kalker said. “I look at the people outside the same way I treat my own children when they’re having a tantrum. You put them in a room and you close the door and say ‘When you are done, you can come out.’
“I wanted to go outside just for fun to rattle it up and make it worse and I have the rabbi (Rabbi Dovid Tiechtel) and the professor to thank for holding me back from that.”
Near the end of the question-and-answer period, Penny Hanna, an Urbana resident and member of UC Jews for Ceasefire, asked “If you say those people, all of them, there are no civilians, what do you count the children as? I know Christians believe in original sin. And so, you know, people are damned from birth. But I don’t think it’s the Jewish principle. How do you name children as an enemy and their death is not counted as a civilian casualty?”
“I don’t know of any instance where there’s been violence done against children on purpose, Kalker said. “In war, there’s collateral damage. I am not the one committing violence against children and I am insulted by the fact that you can say such a thing in public in front of other people.
“The other thing—you drop a 2,000-pound bomb on the enemy. Yes. And if you are next to the enemy, you’re on their side as well. You have a choice. You can flee and leave, or you can stay next to the enemy. My goal is to live in peace, not with my enemies. My goal is to live in peace on my own land. And if you want to fight against me, you’re welcome to. I’m going to win. Next question.”
The audience responded with thunderous applause.
On March 24, 19 days after Kalker’s speech at Chabad, Reuters reported “Palestinian health authorities say Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza has killed more than 50,000 people, with nearly a third of the dead under 18.”
Last year, Kalker was featured in Tablet magazine in a story called “Israel’s Citizen Soldiers,” by Emily Benedek. The article reads in part, “There was no concept of noncombatants anywhere where we were operating,” Kalker said. “Anyone who’s there is either us or the enemy. There’s nothing in the middle. It’s been a long time since we’ve been allowed to work that way.”
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