Aurora Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky will travel to Middle East to support Israeli war effort

AURORA | Aurora City Council member Danielle Jurinsky says she plans to travel to Israel next month to help the Israeli military pack food and supply boxes, and fill in at the civilian jobs of reservists called to fight in the Gaza Strip.

“I know there’s a lot at risk,” Jurinsky said Friday, mentioning her young son, her responsibilities as an elected official and her businesses in Aurora. “But the tugging at my heart became so overwhelming that — if I do not go, and I do not help in every capacity that I can — I’m not sure I’ll be able to look at myself in the mirror much longer.”

Jurinsky has commented candidly at meetings about her Jewish faith, her fears of rising antisemitism in the U.S. and her support for Israel in the ongoing conflict.

On Friday, Jurinsky said the 10-day trip to Israel, organized with the help of the Tlalim Group, will allow her to support the campaign by the Israel Defense Forces to oust Hamas from Gaza without directly risking her life in the conflict. She leaves March 12 for Israel.

“Believe me, I would love to go over there, and be on the frontlines, and get into Gaza, and help with the search effort for the hostages,” Jurinsky said. “But again, I have a lot of responsibilities. I have a little boy, and I am his entire world.”

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been drawn into the latest conflict in Gaza since Oct. 7, when Hamas militants invaded over the country’s southern border and engaged in a spree of killing, kidnapping and sexually assaulting Israeli civilians.

The Israeli government reported late last year that the death toll of the Oct. 7 attack totaled 695 civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 members of the Israeli security forces and 71 foreigners. The attack has been widely described as the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

Jurinsky said the events of Oct. 7 fueled a desire to return to the country that she last visited in her 20s, during an educational trip that also passed through the former site of the Łódź Ghetto in Poland, where members of her own family had been incarcerated during the Nazi occupation.

“Oct. 7 really impacted me — that, and then seeing the hatred that has come for Israel and for the Jewish people,” Jurinsky said. “You hear people screaming for a ceasefire, but those same people are not screaming for the hostages to be released. And that’s where my heart just hurts.”

After repelling the initial attack by Hamas, the Israeli military responded with a bombing campaign and ground invasion that have since killed more than 28,700 Palestinians, the Gaza Health Ministry reported Friday.

Roughly three-quarters of Gaza’s population has been displaced and more than half of the buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the fighting began, according to information published by the United Nations and satellite imagery analyzed by researchers at the City University of New York and Oregon State University.

A United Nations-appointed commission found in October that there was “clear evidence” suggesting both parties to the conflict have committed war crimes.

On Oct. 23, Aurora’s City Council found itself at the center of the local debate over how the U.S. should respond to Hamas’ invasion of Israel and Israel’s counterattack when it considered a resolution condemning the actions of Hamas, drawing hundreds of people to city hall.

The crowd mostly criticized the resolution’s lack of commentary on the Palestinian death toll, accusing the council of being indifferent to the suffering of civilians in Gaza and their relatives in Aurora.

Jurinsky acknowledged at the time that both Jewish and Muslim residents knew people who had been caught in the crossfire of the conflict, before engaging in a lengthy back-and-forth with hecklers after she described the attack by Hamas as “barbaric.”

She said Friday that she would respond to criticism of her choice to volunteer for Israel at a time when that country is facing scrutiny for its conduct of the war by inviting her critics to volunteer for humanitarian work themselves.

“What I would say is stand for what you believe in, and this is something that I believe in, that there are people that need help,” Jurinsky said. “I don’t care what side of this conflict you are on. We need peace back in the Middle East. But we need these hostages to come home.”

Jerry Jurinsky — Danielle’s father, who showed up to the Oct. 23 council meeting, as he has nearly every meeting since Danielle took office, and who will be looking after Danielle’s 4-year-old son while she is overseas — said he had learned about his daughter’s plans to travel to Israel the week prior.

While he said he initially felt like the decision “came out of the blue,” he said he also admired her feeling of closeness to the country.

“I’m hopeful as a father that, wherever she is assigned for the time she’s there, that it will be somewhere maybe around the Jerusalem or Tel Aviv area, where she maybe has a little more safety,” he said. “But this is what she wants to do. And I certainly wasn’t about to say ‘no.’ It’s something that means a great deal to her.”

Danielle Jurinsky’s departure will mean the March 14 meeting of the Public Safety, Civil Service and Courts Policy committee will be postponed to March 21.