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Friday, July 4, 2025

Trini woman expresses love for war-torn Israel ... 'It's the place of my rebirth'

by

Matthew Chin
628 days ago
20231015

Re­porter

matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt

Bombs. Rock­ets. Gun­fire. Yet none of these things were strong enough to con­vince St Joseph na­tive Re­sa Good­ing that mov­ing to the Mid­dle East was a bad idea.

For the en­tre­pre­neur, say­ing good­bye to her home­land of T&T meant start­ing over in the start-up na­tion of the Mid­dle East’s most con­test­ed piece of re­al es­tate, the State of Is­rael. Falling in love with her then Is­raeli hus­band who had trav­elled to the trop­ics for a work/va­ca­tion ex­cur­sion, she de­cid­ed to im­mi­grate to the coun­try in 2007. Since then she has re­mar­ried an­oth­er Is­raeli with whom she has a six-year-old boy.

Her fam­i­ly re­sides in the city of Re­hovot–lo­cat­ed be­tween the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic hot spot, Tel Aviv and the Gaza Strip–which has not been spared from the vi­o­lence that took Is­rael by sur­prise on Oc­to­ber 7 when at­tacks from the Pales­tin­ian group Hamas launched from the Gaza Strip against the south of Is­rael start­ed a new con­flict in the re­gion. Is­rael de­clared that it was at war the next day.

De­spite this, the Trinida­di­an woman re­mains calm and, sur­pris­ing­ly, com­posed some 4,038 km or 2,509 miles away in Dublin where she works at a tech com­pa­ny while her fam­i­ly mem­bers live in Re­hovot.

How­ev­er, she con­stant­ly looks at the news and its de­vel­op­ments and talks to her fam­i­ly when­ev­er she can over the phone.

 Good­ing had been vis­it­ing her fam­i­ly through­out the years be­fore war broke out, she said.

Up­on ar­riv­ing in Is­rael, Good­ing start­ed her dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing agency which al­lowed her to work very close­ly with start-ups. This was a ma­jor ac­com­plish­ment for her as it helped oth­ers re­alise their dreams of build­ing their busi­ness­es.

Resa Gooding

Resa Gooding

Con­fronting the mis­guid­ed per­cep­tion that Is­rael is not a land flow­ing with milk and hon­ey, she cites it as the place of her re­birth.

“My jour­ney in Is­rael (has been a) re­birth ex­pe­ri­ence of al­low­ing my­self to ac­tu­al­ly ac­com­plish the things that I al­ways thought I had fear for, or I played too small for, be­fore mov­ing ... I think this so­ci­ety is re­al­ly a so­ci­ety that helps you to spread your wings and re­alise things are pos­si­ble, that any­thing is pos­si­ble. Most Is­raelis are en­vi­ous that I moved from the Caribbean to (Is­rael) be­cause it is their dream to al­ways go to the Caribbean,” she said.

An­oth­er pop­u­lar per­cep­tion she want­ed to strike down was the im­age of Is­raelis be­ing an­ti-life. In ret­ro­spect of the pat­tern of con­flicts that in­volves her Mid­dle East­ern home, she said the pop­u­la­tion, on the con­trary, con­sists of very com­pas­sion­ate and lov­ing peo­ple.

“When you look at when the world has dis­as­ters, gen­er­al­ly the peo­ple who re­spond first are the Is­raelis. When there was an earth­quake in Haiti, the Is­raelis showed up first. I am not deny­ing that I’ve had neg­a­tive ex­pe­ri­ences in Is­rael, but at the same time if you find your­self hurt, or in need of some­thing, the Is­raelis will show up for you first. They come from a very dif­fi­cult life, I think, where they have to pro­tect them­selves and know who you are, but when they get to know you, or don’t even know you, they put life first,” she said.

Good­ing con­sid­ers Is­rael to be a tough coun­try that the lovers of dou­bles, so­ca, and every­thing Car­ni­val may need time ad­just­ing to.

“There is a small Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty there. There are many Ja­maicans, with two Trinida­di­ans ex­ist­ing per­ma­nent­ly. We have a say­ing among us that ‘Trinida­di­ans can­not sur­vive in Is­rael,’ be­cause re­al­ly to sur­vive here you have to have thick skin. Is­raelis tell you like it is; they’re a very di­rect peo­ple,” she laughed.

When it comes to what Is­raelis love about Trinida­di­an cul­ture, Good­ing praised our food as the se­cret in­gre­di­ent for mak­ing big con­nec­tions.

“Oh, they love our food! I cook my hus­band dou­bles all the time and roast egg­plants. Our food is al­ways the ice­break­er among Is­raelis. They love hum­mus, which is chan­na-based, so any­thing with chan­na in it, they love. My food is al­ways the thing that makes Is­raelis get ex­cit­ed about want­i­ng to know more about the Caribbean, par­tic­u­lar­ly Trinidad. (My hus­band) was vis­it­ing Trinidad last year and he loved it. He’s one of those peo­ple who’s ex­cit­ed to know that he has a Trinida­di­an con­nec­tion so he can be there,” she said.

Asked if the thought of re­turn­ing to Trinidad with her fam­i­ly had crossed her mind due to the war, the en­tre­pre­neur was res­olute that the strong love her fam­i­ly has of Is­rael is the an­chor that keeps them there.

“I love Is­rael, I love the coun­try, it has be­come who (my fam­i­ly) is to­day, and who I’ve be­come to­day,” she said.

See page 16


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