Influencer Montana Tucker featured a freed Israeli hostage in a skincare promo

(JTA) — Since Oct. 7, Montana Tucker has encapsulated the growing role of social media influencers in the sprawling effort to advocate for Israel. 

Tucker, who has more than 3 million followers on Instagram (in addition to 9 million on TikTok), has uploaded videos and photos from the communities devastated by Hamas’ attack and from Auschwitz. She’s posted speeches at rallies and tried to interview people at campus protests. At the Grammys in February, she wore a large yellow ribbon over her dress displaying the words “Bring them home.”

But her latest advocacy effort for Israeli hostages is dividing her pro-Israel fans — because in addition to featuring the harrowing story of a woman who was taken captive with her husband, the video also promotes a skincare product. 

“Raz and Ohad have 3 beautiful daughters who did/do everything they can to bring back their dad/ remaining hostages, and take care of their mom,” Tucker wrote in the caption to the video, uploaded on Thursday. “@freskincare is not only an incredible, clean, and Israeli skincare brand, but it is Raz’s favorite.”

The video — and response to it — showcase the thorny questions raised by the melding of influencer culture and pro-Israel advocacy amid a brutal war and hostage crisis. Many of Tucker’s followers praised the video and her months of efforts to raise awareness of the captives’ plight, as well as a gesture of goodwill by the skincare brand. Some others lambasted her for, in their view, using a traumatized family’s story as an opportunity to promote a beauty regimen.

“This is just vile and unconscionable,” human rights lawyer and Israel advocate Arsen Ostrovsky wrote on X. “How dare you @montanatucker come here to Israel to profit of the grief and massacre of our people. Have you no shame?”

Another user who responded to Ostrovsky’s post saw it differently. “She has done so much for our cause in social media since the war started, and because she did something for someone in partnership with a brand, your (sic) jumping down her throat,” he wrote. “Pick a fight with the correct people, this isn’t one of them!”

The video starts like many of the other hostage testimonies that have emerged since Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists took some 250 Israelis captive and brought them to Gaza. Raz Ben Ami, 57, sitting on a couch with her three daughters, recalls hiding in a bomb shelter during Hamas’ attack, and discusses her and her husband, Ohad’s, abduction from Kibbutz Be’eri.

Ben Ami was released during a ceasefire in late November. Her husband remains in captivity. 

“We miss him very much,” Ben Ami, who is wearing a shirt calling for Ohad’s release, says in the video. “We’re working very hard to get him back. We hope he’s still OK.”

The video then pans to Mickael Bensadoun, CEO of the Israeli skincare brand Fré, who is sitting next to Tucker. “We are praying for the release of all hostages,” Bensadoun says. “This is the least we can do.”

Bensadoun goes on to explain that while Raz was in captivity, her daughter Yulie, 27, had reached out to the company, “saying that she would love her mother to get some Fré products when she’s back. Our head of customer support showed me this message. I think I wanted to give all Fré to you.”

Tucker responds, “There are a million skin care brands, but I think what makes a brand so special is when there is a personal story.” Later, she hugs Ben Ami and says, “You are amazing, really, you inspire me so much.”

At the end of the video, Tucker asks for permission to rub some cream from the brand on Ben Ami’s face. Tucker reassures her that her hands are clean. Ben Ami responds, with a laugh, “I’ve been in Gaza.”

The video concludes with the group shouting, in unison, “We love Fré!”

The post has garnered many positive reactions praising Tucker for bringing attention to the atrocities of Oct. 7 and the plight of the hostages.

“@montanatucker Do you even know how much this means to every Jew in the world?,” one user wrote on Instagram. “The fact that you’re getting their stories out there for ALL to hear and see! Thank you so much for EVERYTHING you’re doing for your community!”

Tucker shared the video during a week when Israel Defense Forces soldiers have recovered hostages’ bodies from the city of Rafah. The same day Tucker’s video went up, the families of five young women hostages released a video showing their capture by Hamas, sparking heightened pressure on the Israeli government to negotiate their release.

In light of the dire news, some people objected to Tucker featuring hostages in a video promoting beauty products.

“After you thought you’ve seen it all, watch this video and see how some people and the brands they’re pushing apparently have no problem capitalizing on the backs of people who have been to hell and back,” Yaakov Katz, the former editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post, wrote on X. 

In response to an inquiry from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a representative for Tucker said that Ben Ami and Tucker had met at a recent rally for the hostages’ release before meeting in the temporary housing where the Ben Ami family has been living following the destruction of their home on Oct. 7.  

“She wanted her story told, her husband’s story, told by Montana,” said the representative, who gave her name as Michelle. “She always goes to their houses.”

The representative added that the idea for the video came from Fré and that Tucker was not paid to go to the house.

“It was totally a mitzvah thing,” she said. “She will always be there for the hostages until everyone’s home.”

Fré, which did not respond to JTA’s request for comment, is not the only company to tell stories about the hostages with its products. Wines on the Vine, an online wine store and project of the nonprofit Israel Innovation Fund, has released a line of wines featuring the faces and short biographies of the remaining hostages called “Wines of Hope.” A third of the proceeds will be donated to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum advocacy group, according to the website.

“Wines of Hope tells the story of the 257 hostages who were taken captive by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, and specifically the 128 people who remain there until today,” the website says. “With every sip we take, we drink this wine as a symbol of hope and a yearning for their return, until the day we can drink together with them, fully rejoicing and celebrating true freedom.”