The Pen Is Mightier than the Sword: Fay
Fay does not want to give her last name, because she has made a lot of enemies.
A businesswoman–turned–Israel advocate in the aftermath of October 7, Fay is the behind-the-scenes powerhouse driving thousands of email campaigns that condemn antisemitic professors, doctors and other professionals, expose individuals who tear down posters of hostages, and praise political figures and others who stand with Israel and the Jewish people, among many other causes. Her ever-growing WhatsApp group, Pens for Swords (Swords refers to the Swords of Iron War), has a clear mission: to fight for Israel, combat antisemitism and advocate for the hostages. As she put it in a recent online interview, “Everyone has a gift in life. My gift is having a big mouth, and I’m using it.”
Shortly after October 7, Fay, deeply moved by the plight of the hostages, saw a video on Instagram of a professor tearing down a poster of a hostage. Appalled, Fay wrote a strongly worded letter to the university once the professor was identified, and sent it to friends and family, who kept sharing the letter. From that moment, Fay—who runs a makeup store in New York’s Five Towns—became unstoppable. She began posting more and more letters. Her following grew. Soon she began sending letters to politicians, including New York Senator Chuck Schumer and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, to deans of schools and to city council and school district officials. As her letter-writing consumed her, she began neglecting her business. She wrote to the Red Cross for not visiting the hostages in Gaza, to companies unwittingly selling T-shirts and other merchandise with antisemitic slogans, and to universities offering “academic dishonesty,” such as Harvard’s course titled “Palestine: 1,000 Years.”
Fay shared her letters on Instagram, with a link to a petition site. As her following mushroomed, she switched over to WhatsApp. What started as one WhatsApp group has now spiraled into many. As of this writing, Pens for Swords has more than 25,000 followers, has initiated several thousand campaigns and posts at least ten letters a day. Working alongside Fay is an impressive team of volunteers, including writers, editors, researchers, tech specialists and fact-checkers who compose comprehensive, thoroughly researched letters. Other volunteers focus on the aesthetics of each post and ensure the letters are easy to sign and send. “It’s not a one-woman show,” Fay said in an online interview. “I feel like I’m just the secretary.”
Her thousands of followers often share her posts with others doing similar work. “I’m the hub,” Fay says. “Other groups take my material and send it out to their members. I have a guy in Belgium who has a database with every European leader—mayors, politicians, ambassadors and so on.” Many celebrities and pro-Israel Christian groups have joined her campaigns.
“People are so happy to do this,” said Fay. “This makes them feel empowered in a world where they feel so helpless right now.”
Fay’s followers have come to trust her meticulously researched letters, so they simply click, sign, send and share. Indeed, Fay claims it takes “less than ten minutes” for followers to sign and send each day’s letters.
Not surprisingly, Fay’s efforts have borne fruit. How could they not? As one official told her, “When you get 6,000 emails in your inbox, you definitely pay attention to what these people are saying.”
As a result of her advocacy, certain pro-Hamas events were canceled and various city council BDS resolutions were defeated. Pressure from her groups led Shopify to remove Kanye West’s sale of swastika T-shirts. Ms. Rachel, a YouTuber famous for creating educational content for children, had previously only spoken about the losses among Palestinians. But after pressure from Pens for Swords, she posted about the Bibas family, a”h.
When you get 6,000 emails in your inbox, you definitely pay attention to what these people are saying.
When a staff member from Mayor Adams’s office was filmed tearing down posters of the Israeli hostages and knocking her challenger’s phone out of her hand, Fay’s group flooded the mayor’s office with emails. The woman was subsequently fired (ironically, her job description included “bridging cultural divides” and “celebrating the rich diversity of New York City”). Other wins include Nassau County passing a mask ban and JetBlue issuing a public apology regarding its in-flight map, where much of Israel was labeled “Palestinian territories.” The airline also fired the third-party company responsible for providing the map.
Every Friday, Fay posts the week’s “wins.” “It makes everyone feel powerful,” says Fay’s close friend Debbie Rochlin. “She’ll also write gratitude posts to people who helped her.”
In one post, Fay urges everyone to “thank Congressman Ritchie Torres for his consistent support” (so many calls and messages came through, Fay was forced to ask everyone to stop as it was overwhelming the staff!).
Noting that the pro-Hamas propaganda machine is both strategic and well-organized, Fay believes they were prepared well before October 7. For example, she points out how pro-Hamas supporters often swarm city council meetings in small, unsuspecting towns across the US—places where council members would be hard-pressed to locate Gaza on a map. They begin pressuring the councils to vote in favor of anti-Israel resolutions and to encourage boycotts of Israeli products in local stores. Once these resolutions are passed, they are sent up the political chain, allowing pro-Hamas advocates to claim, “Look how many cities support divestment from Israel!” To counter the pro-Hamas activists, Fay’s group crafts well-researched letters aimed at educating council members about the reality of the situation in the Middle East.
How did an ordinary grandmother become a formidable Israel activist? Fay says she has always enjoyed writing. She discovered the power of writing letters as a child when she opened a pack of gum to find only four sticks instead of the promised five. “I wrote to the company, and they sent me back a coupon for a new pack,” she says.
In elementary school, she wrote letters on behalf of former Soviet Prisoner of Zion Natan Sharansky, and after Jonathan Pollard was incarcerated, she wrote him a letter every day until he was released. “I was always very Zionistic,” she says.
After seeing the number of young people who attended the mass Israel rally in November of 2023, Fay founded Students for Jewish Advocacy, where she works with parents and administrators from over ninety-five Jewish day schools and college groups. She asks them to choose three letters each week to share with the students and have them sign and send. Aside from wanting their voices added, she believes it’s critical that students learn about advocacy and the importance of making their voices heard.
“Fay will ask schools to take five or ten minutes a day to send out letters or signatures,” says Aliza Bixon, a friend and business associate who is also the rebbetzin of Beth Israel Congregation in Miami Beach. “It grows into hundreds of thousands of signatures, and it really does move the needle. You feel her passion for her cause and the pain she feels for the hostages and others affected by the war.”
“Fay begins her posts every day with a dedication to someone, usually a hostage,” says Rochlin.
Pens for Swords has taken over Fay’s life. “I haven’t exercised or read a book in months,” she says. She can’t take a break for long, because if she does, she finds herself with fifty WhatsApp messages that require responses.
“Fay has a full-time job, children and grandchildren, and yet she’s working on this night and day,” Rochlin says. “But she always had a lot of energy and simchat hachayim, and a need to be productive. She’s an inspiration!”
Fay says it’s the plight of the hostages that keeps her going. “If they all come home, maybe I’ll stop,” she says.
“What keeps my mood up is the tremendous unity I see in Klal Yisrael,” she says. “There are so many non-religious Jews who have come forth! I’ve learned that there are so many people who care about Israel, and that keeps me inspired.”
Barbara Bensoussan is a writer in Brooklyn and a frequent contributor to Jewish Action. Anyone interested in joining Fay’s WhatsApp group can email ja@ou.org.
In This Section
The Pen Is Mightier than the Sword: Fay by Barbara Bensoussan
Fighting the Good Fight: Kassy Akiva by Sandy Eller
Getting to the Root of the Story: Meira K. by Merri Ukraincik
Advocacy on a Higher Level: Tziri Preis by Barbara Bensoussan
One Teen’s Fight against Antisemitism: Sofie Glassman by Yehudis Litvak
That Girl Who Loves the Jews: Adina Fernandez by Sarah Ogince