She received a strictly secular humanist Leftist upbringing.
In fact, when Roni started going to a traditional friend's home for the Friday night Sabbath meal, her mother commented, "What's up with you and all this religiosity?"
As a child, her family often took trips to the Gazan beach, supporting local Arabs by purchasing souvenirs and patronizing local shops.
Her family only believed in peace and so-called peaceful solutions.
They believed in the goodness of humanity, including the goodness of their Arab neighbors in Gaza, who surely loved peace and goodness as much as Roni's family did, only they were upset about not having their own country and stuff like that.
In fact, her family pioneered what later became the far-Left Meretz party, holding meetings in Roni's childhood home.
Needless to say, Roni wholeheartedly yearned for a Palestinian state.
In her teens, she and her friends demonstrated against Rabbi Meir Kahana, engaging in violent arguments with the young Itamar Ben Gvir, right in front of Rabbi Kahana.
"I remember Itamar Ben Gvir as a youth," she states.
As characteristic of so many Leftists who express peace, love, and understanding for dysfunctional societies and terrorists (but not for idealistic religious conservatives), Roni's interactions with the young Ben Gvir contained so much venom, she described them as "anachnu holchim itam makkot" — "we engaged them in fisticuffs."
(It seems she spoke metaphorically, meaning they clashed verbally, not physically.)
In her twenties, Roni fulfilled her belief in the total nullification of any kind of discrimination when she started dating the son of of an Arab family who were good friends of her parents.
The relationship nearly led to marriage — and Roni even lived for a year in his Muslim-Arab village — except that both Roni's and Ashraf's parents pointed out they would never find a place within Israeli society as a married couple.
(Neither the Jewish nor the Muslim parents had any problem with the intermarriage, only they felt this marriage would not be accepted in either sector of Israeli society, whether Muslim or Jewish.)
Yet Roni refused to leave Eretz Yisrael. So with both Roni and Ashraf seeing what their parents also saw, they separated rather than move to another country.
Later, Roni married a moderately religious Jewish man, and they brought forth three children. (Two ended up secular — for now — and one is religious.)
Roni continued in this secular Leftist pro-Palestinian vein until the Great Slaughter near Gaza.
Friends of Roni's — pro-Palestinian Leftists like her — were murdered or captured.
Yet even that did not immediately change her views.
Initially, she did not see the particularly disturbing videos of the Horror.
But after hearing such extreme warnings from psychologists against watching footage of the event, and after hearing of images impossible to erase from one's mind, images that cause irreparable trauma, Roni started to wonder. What's in there that's so terrible that just seeing it will shatter one's soul?
So Roni and her family tuned in to a Hamas channel. Initially, they came across the videos that were broadcast all over in the general media.
Then they started to see the ones deemed too disturbing to publicize at large.
They watched one. Then another. And then a third video.
As Roni describes:
And then with the third video...I saw something that changed everything.
And that moment brought down on me an absolute silence that continued for more than 24 hours. I simply went around in utter speechlessness — also internally.
And after 24 hours, I went to my husband and said, "I understand."
I understood that I saw what I needed to see in order to understand.
I understood what kind of culture I'm up against.
I understood that Am Yisrael will always live by its sword.
We forgot the lessons of the Holocaust...we saw the piles of corpses in our textbooks — and we did not truly learn a thing from it.
And it's not just the Left. It's Medinat Yisrael.
On the Right, there were many people who talked — but not one of them fought as if his life depended on it.
The security apparatus is in frightening disarray in every part of it.
Each person who advanced within that system is one who believed in holding onto a dripping faucet — all of us!
You asked me, "How did you respond when they attacked settlers?"
I responded [to the attacked settlers], "You chose to live there."
How did we respond when [our enemies] "dripped"?
We all tolerated it because that's the approach of Medinat Yisrael at this time.
There exist cultures that nurture hatred and evil — and violence. And within their context, such things aren't just legitimate — they're admired.
I very much clap al cheit for all the times I didn't understand.
...to lose everything I believed in my entire life...my ideology now looks like Gaza after the bombings.
Craving support after this shocking awakening, Roni sought out other former Leftists who transitioned after being knocked between the eyes in their own personal moment of truth.
For some, it came with the terror attacks that followed in the wake of the Oslo Accords.
For others, it was the late-night murderous attack on father Udi Fogel and mother Ruth Fogel, their nursing infant, and 2 of their sleeping children.
And here's what the repentant Leftists advised Roni:
"Don't look back — the moment came when you understood, so say 'thank you' that you understood and will not die an idiot, and seek how to continue from here onward."
What does it mean, what I understood, what changed?
You know what changed?
Everything.
I'm a prisoner of thanks to that moment.
People ask me, "Did it traumatize you?"
I say that I, at that same moment — the place that I chose to take what I saw?
It's a place of understanding.
It's a place of awareness.
It's a place of recognition.
And I think that safeguards me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwVkvq7BL08
Note #2: This interview with Roni Gelbfish took place on Hidabroot with Moran Kors.
For the story of Meir Adoni (plus an explanation of clap al cheit), please see: being-jolted-awake-what-remains-of-the-secular-israeli-left-hint-not-much-and-when-will-the-world-finally-notice.html