Goni, a 25 year old Israeli student who recently completed Yeshivat Hadar’s Jewish Education Program in New York City, where she studied and debated Jewish philosophy and its application to contemporary life. Before arriving in New York, Goni served two years as a journalist in the IDF, where she specialized in creating documentary programs for Israeli Army Radio. After completing her military service, Goni worked as a journalist and researcher for the popular Israeli television news show “London and Kirshenbaum” and it was in this capacity that she covered some of the most heartrending events of the 2008 Gaza war.
As a child and a teenager, Goni grew up in Kibbutz Yagur, near the northern port city of Haifa. Her grandparents, who immigrated to Israel from Poland in the early 1930s as part of the Zionist movement, were among its founders. Goni grew up with a deep love of music, especially the guitar, and movies, hence her focus on media. Also, as a young girl, Goni was personally affected by suicide bombings in Haifa which killed an entire family from her kibutz.
Through her experience working in the Israeli news media, Goni came to the realization that many important stories do not make headlines. These stories further exposed Goni to the terrible cost of war and the ways in which conflict haunts the lives of those affected by it with a sense of irreparable loss. It is this knowledge and her desire to bring these untold stories to light had motivates her in her own quest for peace.
In 2011, Goni interned at Just Vision, the award winning film making company that produced films such as Budrus.
To read more about Goni’s time in America, please click the following link to her summer blog: Read Goni Zilberman’s blog.
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