Born in Damascus and raised in Lebanon, where she spent 18 years, Rawan Osman grew up believing what politicians, teachers, media, and leaders all said about Jews, Zionists and Israelis: they were one in the same, and they were the enemy. She was, as she described, a “fan” of Hezbollah — the extremist Islamic group considered a terror entity by the Canadian government.

With the tune of an antenna, she could view Israeli television, but to the ire of her parents. Hebrew became associated with the language of the enemy.

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She moved back to Syria in 2011 and left for France as war began, eventually moving to Strasbourg in 2018 for academic study.

Until she lived in the Jewish Quarter in Strasbourg in her twenties, she had never met, let alone spoken, to any Jews. But a pi

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