A pacifist in Israel

Symon Hill talks to Taya Govreen-Segal, one of the few conscientious objectors exempted from army service by the Israeli government

by Symon Hill 26th February 2016

As a teenager in Tel Aviv, Taya Govreen-Segal was taken by her school on a Holocaust remembrance trip to Poland. She returned with a determination to refuse to join the Israeli army.

‘What happens on those trips is that there’s a very strong narrative of “never again”,’ explains Taya. The message was ‘we’ll do everything in our power so that no-one will ever harm the Jewish people again’. She added, ‘That kind of makes the whole trip very militarised.’