“We Are Not Supposed to Be Friends” Letters Between Maryam and Miriam from a Tent in Gaza

They told us we couldn’t be friends.
Not in this world. Not in this war.

They said a girl named Maryam in Gaza and a Jewish woman named Miriam in the United States were born on opposite sides of an unbridgeable line. They forgot we were born human first.

They forgot that grief recognizes grief.
That the ache for home doesn’t check a passport.

She writes from a tent with no roof and no door. I write from a desk that holds more safety than her entire street. But we both write from exile.

I go by Miriam in Hebrew.
She signs as Maryam in Arabic.

We have never met, but she calls me sister. She sends me her stories when the Wi-Fi works and the bombs don’t fall. And when they do, I wait. I watch. I listen for her voice in the static.

Her words are not filtered through press briefings or polished by diplomats. They come raw.
And today, I offer her the page.

Because the world is full of loud men who call this collateral damage.
But she calls it home.

In the Tent of Life: Maryam Speaks

From Home to Rubble, From Homeland to Hunger
By Maryam, from Gaza

Every morning, I am not awakened by sunlight like in ordinary days, but by the whistle of a drone overhead, the whizzing of bullets, or screams echoing between the tents. Here, in one of Gaza’s displacement camps, I live with my family of seven after the war completely destroyed our home. Nothing remains but rubble, shattered memories, and a family photo covered in dust—still held tightly in my heart.

My name is Maryam. A Palestinian girl from Gaza. I once lived a simple life, like any girl my age. I went to school every morning, shared meals with my brothers, helped my mother at home, and laughed with my father, who worked honorably to provide us with a stable life. But all of that changed in a moment—when war became the title of our daily lives, and life itself turned into a luxury we no longer had.

One night, we heard a terrifying sound and felt the ground shake beneath us. A missile had struck near our house. Thankfully, we survived, but the next day, our home was gone. Just a crater, broken furniture, and scattered stones. We left with nothing but our souls, my mother’s tears, and my father’s silent sorrow.

We fled to another area, slightly safer. We now live in a small tent that offers no protection from the cold of night or the scorching heat of day. We share everything: water, food, even pain. We stand in endless lines—for a loaf of bread, for clean water, for any glimpse of hope at the doors of a broken world.

My father lost his job. We have no source of income. My mother tries to cook whatever she can—sometimes only dry bread, or some boiled lentils, if we’re lucky.

We’ve started to join protests we call the “Revolution of the Hungry.” Children, women, and the elderly all demanding their right to live. We don’t ask for much—just clean water, a loaf of bread, and a moment of calm when the sky doesn’t roar.

Each evening, I sit in front of our tent and write. Writing has become my only refuge. I write about the hunger that has become part of us, the fear that lives inside us, the children who no longer laugh, my mother who silently weeps, and my father whose silence has become heavier than any words.

We don’t want pity. We just want the world to hear us. To know that beneath these tents, hearts still beat—despite everything. That a person doesn’t lose dignity only when they starve, but when they are forgotten.

Today, I send this message to every living conscience: Save Gaza. Not just with aid campaigns, but with justice, with truth, with real peace. Because we do not deserve to die of hunger, nor to live in terror. We simply want to live. A simple, safe life like anyone else. Without fear, without tents, and without a “Revolution of the Hungry.”

From my heart and from my tent, I write to the world:
Here is Gaza. Here, hearts bleed, childhoods are stolen, and dreams are buried beneath the rubble.

What They Don’t Want You to Hear

This is what they don’t want you to hear. Not on mainstream news. Not in your sanitized humanitarian briefings.
A teenage girl, asking the world not to pity her, but to remember her.
Not to weep, but to act.

Maryam isn’t a symbol. She’s not a “both sides” statistic. She is a girl—hungry, brilliant, brave—who still writes with grace while the world looks away.

To be Jewish and bear witness to this is not betrayal. It is Torah.

Because my people’s survival was never meant to justify another people’s starvation.

We are not supposed to be friends.
But here we are.
Her in the tent. Me in the diaspora.
Writing our way back to humanity.

From Miriam to Maryam, and from Gaza to the world:

May no girl ever have to fight for bread,
or shelter her dreams from missiles.
May no friendship be forbidden by politics,
and no people be forgotten beneath rubble.