Adele P. Raemer
Adele Raemer is an American born Israeli who has lived in Kibbutz Nirim, on the border with the Gaza Strip since 1975. Stationed there as part of her army service in the IDF in 1975, she fell in love with the community and never left, even when the Kibbutz was under attack from Gaza terror. She is a passionate advocate for Israel and is a sought-after voice from the Southern border region. A proud Zionist, she believes that people on both sides of the border deserve better security and quality of life.
Adele has been an active advocate for her region since 2011. She founded and moderates an 15k member-strong Facebook group called Life on the Border with Gaza. The group has members from around the world who rely on news from the group to keep them updated. Throughout all the security escalations since the 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense, she has remained in her home which is one mile from the Gaza Strip, in order to bear witness and report what is really happening there. She has experienced hundreds of rocket attacks over the years and in 2014 one exploded near her bedroom, riddling the walls with shrapnel while she was in the house. She is a frequent blogger for the Times of Israel, and has given hundreds of interviews for international and local media including television, radio, and print. She has been on numerous international speaking tours to share her experiences about what life on the border is really like. In this capacity she has traveled to Switzerland, and been sent cross-country through the United States at the request of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the Jewish National Fund, and Jewish Colorado, among others. Adele was nominated as one of the 10 Jewish Faces who Made Waves in 2018 by Haaretz Newspaper. In December of 2019, when the United States was hosting the UN Security Council, she was invited to address the ambassadors, which she did via Skype from the US embassy offices in Tel Aviv. She is currently part of a prestigious team of citizen advocates trained in Public Diplomacy by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Her affiliation with the JNF includes the work she has been doing with the Art Shelter decoration project throughout the Gaza Envelope, mapping all of the shelters and building a website with a page dedicated to each art shelter. collecting the stories behind the designs and the donors.
Adele is a suicide survivor who was widowed in November 2008. She is also a survivor of the Oct 7th, 2023 massacres, when she had to hunker down for 11 hours in her saferoom on Kibbutz Nirim to hide from terrorists, literally at her front door. She almost lost 3 of her grandchildren that day. Together with her community she was evacuated first to Eilat and then to Beer Sheva for 627 days, a refugee from her home, which until the end of June was a closed military zone.

Since then, she has been an important witness who makes sure to tell her story and those of her community, everywhere she can, with the aim of raising awareness regarding the massacres, making sure that our hostages are not forgotten, and emphasizing the importance of the return of the communities to the area.


Throughout that period Adele participated in delegations and talks abroad to speak with lawmakers in Washington DC and in Berlin, Germany, to the Christian Media in numerous venues. In February she was brought to Nashville, Tennessee to participate in their annual NRB 2024 media conference and was subsequently invited by the Christian Broadcasting Network to be their honored guest to the 2024 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. As a part of that trip she was interviewed on the 700 Club, after which she was brought to various communities and media in around the US to fund raise for her kibbutz. Adele loves theater, and regularly participates in amateur theater productions. She sees her civilian public diplomacy as “her Zionism”, and her best tool for defense of her country, her region, her community and her family. Adele is currently actively involved in fundraising. She traveled a seventh time, on a coast-to-coast speaking tour in the US raising awareness and funds for her kibbutz, to enable her community to return and rebuild bigger, better, safer and stronger, as well as with the national kibbutz movement, advocating for impacted kibbutzim in both the North as well as the south.


Nominated by Haaretz Newspaper and invited to address UN ambassadors, Adele is now part of a team trained in Public Diplomacy by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Her work with JNF includes an art shelter decoration project, paused temporarily due to security concerns. As a survivor of recent tragedies and an advocate for her community, Adele remains dedicated to her civilian public diplomacy, considering it her best tool for defending her country, region, and family.