Ismael Noor and Rene Lichtman may come from different backgrounds and regions, but in their eyes, their past traumas are reflections of one another’s experiences.

The Michigan residents are survivors of their respective people’s most harrowing tragedies: Lichtman, 86, is a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, and Noor, 75, is a Palestinian Christian survivor of the Nakba. Both are longtime advocates for Palestinian rights and critics of the Israeli government, leading them to partner on local efforts pushing for a ceasefire amid Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

“We are both victims of the same colonial, imperialist power that existed at the time,” Noor said. “They sacrifice people for their own interests.”

Ismael Noor, 75, a survivor of the Nakba, and Holocaust survivor Rene Lichtman, 86, were among dozens of activists Monday, April 22 at Farmington Hills City Hall to call on the City Council to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

While Noor was born after 1948, considered the central point of the Nakba, his mother was pregnant with him when more than 750,000 Palestinians were forcefully displaced or expelled from the land of historic Palestine upon the founding of the state of Israel. He was born in 1949 in the West Bank.

He grew up seeing violence targeted at the Palestinian population by the Israeli government, culminating in the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel launched air strikes in the surrounding region. Territories including the modern-day Gaza Strip, West Bank and Jerusalem were occupied by Israel afterward. Noor, who was 17-years-old at this point, was living in the West Bank when Israeli forces came into his town.

Noor and his family were forced onto a bus, and then shipped over to Jordan as refugees. After completing high school in Jordan, he would later earn his bachelor’s degree in Baghdad, and his Ph.D at Michigan State University. He currently resides in Dearborn.

“People were scattered in the farms because they were afraid of the army,” he said. “They called the people to come back, claimed that (we) were safe and we could come back to our homes. Then 44 hours later, they ordered everybody on the street. We were lying on the street with soldiers (pointing) their guns at anyone who moved.”

Noor and his family were forced onto a bus, and then shipped over to Jordan as refugees. After completing high school in Jordan, he would later earn his bachelor’s degree in Baghdad, and his Ph.D at Michigan State University. He currently resides in Dearborn.

Lichtman was born to two Polish, secular Jews living in France and was 2-years-old when World War II broke out in Europe. After the Nazis invaded Poland, his father joined the French Foreign Legion to fight the Nazis, later dying in combat.

Lichtman was born to two Polish, secular Jews living in France and was 2-years-old when World War II broke out in Europe. After the Nazis invaded Poland, his father’s national ties to the country and his anti-fascist ideologies led him to join the French Foreign Legion to fight the Nazis, later dying in combat.

During this time, Lichtman was in hiding with a Catholic family, with his mother later going into hiding elsewhere in Paris. After the end of World War II, he moved to the United States at the age of 13 in 1950 with his birth mother. He currently lives in the Metro Detroit area.

In the 1970s, Lichtman began attending pro-Palestine rallies in Dearborn, advocating for a two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine issue. He has become more critical of the Israeli government from being involved with far-left political movements in the United States, such as advocating against the Vietnam War, and began to see what the Israelis were doing to the Palestinians in a different light.

“The Israeli leadership says things that are so similar to what the Nazis said and did,” Lichtman said. “That was what they taught me. What they were doing and are still doing, they were open about it. That’s why they want to go into Rafah, to do ethnic cleansing.”

Noor and Lichtman met by attending pro-Palestinian marches, and continue to talk over Zoom, WhatsApp and email to discuss the ongoing assault in Gaza. The two said they consider each other as friends.

One of their most recent joint appearances was at a Farmington Hills City Council meeting in late April. Both made public comments sharing their stories and called on the Council to pass a ceasefire resolution, which was followed by raucous verbal clashes between Mayor Theresa Rich and public speakers.

One attendee that evening was Farmington Hills resident Nia Abuzahriya, a Palestinian American who is active with local advocacy for Palestine. Her uncle was a Nakba survivor and said the Nakba survivors she has met have layers of trauma.

After advocating for Palestine over the past 30 years, she said the Israeli narrative is cracking apart and that the current protests feel like they are swinging the discourse in favor of the Palestinian cause. She hopes that people seeing a Nakba survivor and a Holocaust survivor coming together to support Palestinian liberation will show that this issue is not a fight between Muslims and Jews, but a fight against colonial occupation.

“Humanity will prevail,” Abuzahriya said. “(Seeing these two) renews my hope in humanity.”

Farmington Hills resident Nia Abuzahriya vocalized her support for Palestine as police escorted her out of Farmington Hills City Hall on April 22. Citizen activists were demanding the City Council pass a Gaza ceasefire resolution.

Noor and Lichtman continue to be involved in local activism, with Noor speaking at student encampments across Michigan. Both of them continue to speak at City Council meetings at places like Hazel Park and Farmington Hills.

With the action taken by young activists and at the community level, Noor said he has hope for the future of the Palestinian people and other oppressed groups around the world.

“Freedom is not something that is assigned for one part of the world, or one community,” he said. “Freedom is something precious to everybody, individually and collectively.”

– Story and photos by Andrew Mullin