Former Hezbollah defender converting to Judaism

Syrian-Lebanese Rawan Osman overcame her anti-Israel brainwashing as an adult in Europe, and then, she said, October 7 “changed my life.”

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Rawan Osman, an influencer born in the Beqaa Valley in Syria, raised in Lebanon, and taught to hate Israel from childhood, is in the process of converting to Judaism, she told Ynet in an interview published Sunday.

“I was a fan of Hezbollah,” she said of the terror organization that dominates the region in which she was born. “I believed the narrative the state wanted us to learn about Israel and the Jews.”

She then moved to France as a young adult and met Jews, “and that opened my eyes,” she said.

This led her on “a long journey,” as she called it, and “after years of reading about Israel and Jewish history, I became a proud Zionist activist.”

Osman dedicated herself to soft diplomacy, trying to fight the Arab world’s ubiquitous antisemitism by educating people in their own language about Jewish history and the Holocaust.

But then, she said, October 7, 2023, the Hamas-led invasion of Israel in which terrorists slaughtered 1,200 people, including women and children, and took 251 hostage, “changed my life.”

She publicly slammed Hamas and has continually voiced support for Israel’s war on the terrorists, whom she called in the interview “monsters.”

“I don’t understand how anyone can buy their narrative” that Israel is the enemy of the region, she said, when “every day, it becomes clearer” that the real danger is “the so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ led by … the Iranian regime.”

While focusing on “trying desperately to get Arabs to understand that they are intensely brainwashed,” Osman found the time to narrate a just-released documentary on antisemitism called “Tragic Awakening: A New Look at the Oldest Hatred,” directed by Canadian-Israeli filmmaker Rabbi Raphael Shore.

She also decided to take the ultimate step in identifying with the Jewish people by starting the process of converting to Judaism.

“Many people told me that I shouldn’t share that I’m converting,” she noted, because “being an Arab Muslim ally is more valuable.”

“However,” she continued, “converting to Judaism is not my dirty secret, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s something I’m proud of, and I’d like the Jews to understand that it is something you should be proud of. There’s nothing wrong with you and everything wrong with the world.”

Osman has received many death threats due to her activism, especially in Germany, where she now lives.

“There is a criminal investigator I report some of them to, but as they say, ‘A dog that barks rarely bites.’ Those who want to kill me won’t inform me in advance,” she said. “I have to be careful where I’m invited to speak publicly. We have heavy security, but I truly believe I’m doing the right thing, so it doesn’t bother me at all.”

Friendships have also ended over her pro-Israel stance.

“I still have many family members and friends in Lebanon and Syria,” she said. “Most of them blocked me right after October 7 when I made a public statement condemning Hamas and supporting Israel, many out of fear, but many just because they are antisemites.”