Lone soldier recently released from his combat battalion in the IDF shares the meaning of his Israel experience during his challenging time as a volunteer.
Hiking back to our base after a Battalion Drill in the Judean Desert. (Photo: Joshua Greenberg)
July afternoons in the Negev desert are not comfortable to say the least. They’re even less comfortable if you’re a Givati infantry cadet who doesn’t remember the last time he’s showered or changed his uniform, which by now smells like a mixture of sweat and gunpowder. It’s very hot, and the afternoon of the 27th of July 2014 was no different, or so I thought.
After another long day of training in the field we retired to our tents for some much needed sleep. A few hours later we were woken up to shouts from my company commander to assemble as soon as possible outside. I checked my watch, it was 2am. This was not another drill, the war in Gaza against Hamas terrorists was in full swing and every soldier in the company knew what our commander’s message would be. Our company assembled in formation around our commanding officer and he told us the news; our company of soldiers, barely four months in the IDF was being pulled out of training and sent to support Operation Protective Edge on the border with the Gaza Strip, more specifically, to Kibbutz Nahal Oz. Emotions ranged and one could see the mixture of feelings expressed amongst the cadets as well as some of the commanders and officers as we faced the reality of being sent to war.
We hastily packed up our camp in the desert and waited for buses. The buses came, but we never received the order to get on. The next morning we awoke to the news that terrorists had infiltrated a defensive position on the outer border of Nahal Oz that very night and that five soldiers had been killed. It could have been us. My unit did not directly participate in the Gaza operation of the summer of 2014. In the end it was deemed that since we were still halfway through basic training we could not enter combat operations and instead were sent in a supportive role to Israel’s southern border with Egypt. However, this incident had a deep impact upon me. It was the first (and not last) time in my army career that I felt the reality of what I was doing. Not only reality but also it gave me a feeling of purpose and justification for what I had dedicated almost two years of my life.
As the plane descended over the Mediterranean through the clouds on a brisk November morning in 2013 the bright lights of Tel Aviv came into view. As with many El Al flights landing in Israel the atmosphere became that of excitement; families, anxious to see loved ones and tourists on their first visit to the Holy Land were among the occupants of the flight. I had witnessed this scene many times before on previous visits to Israel but this time was different; I was here to stay, and I was here to volunteer to serve in the Israeli Defence Force.
I cannot identify a single reason for my decision to volunteer; it is more that there are a number of reasons, which made me come to making this choice. I became familiar with Zionism as well as Judaism as a whole, in the years leading up to my Bar Mitzvah. I come from a fairly secular home where only in recent years we began to observe Jewish holidays. I became acquainted with Israel on a trip in (2006/7) with some close family friends. All the usual sights and more were seen, as it was my first trip to this land but one incident particularly stuck in my mind. As our group gathered in the Western Wall Plaza, a group of soldiers assembled next to us. Naturally the kids in the group wanted to take a photo with them. My friend’s father approached one of the soldiers for a photograph. “Sure, why not”, he said in a clear American accent. After speaking to him we learned that he was a Machal volunteer from New York and had put his studies at a leading US university on hold to volunteer in the IDF. I was confused. Why would a young teenager with everything going for him back in the States leave it all to come to this country and volunteer for its military? It was puzzling to me at the time and after speaking to him we continued on our tour of the Old City of Jerusalem. After this short trip I returned to London but the image of the American soldier remained in the back of my head; this first trip to Israel had unknowingly cemented a bond between the Jewish State and me.
I decided to return to Israel more often and within a few years became acquainted with many Israelis, some of whom I have the privilege to call close friends. By the age of 17 I had developed a strong sense of Zionism. I was one of the youngest foreign volunteers in Magen David Adom, Israel’s national ambulance service, and was Vice-President of my school’s Jewish Assembly. The heroism and inspiration of figures such as Zeev Jabotinsky, Alexander Zaid and Meir Har-Zion was by now well known to me. It was even more uplifting for me to learn that one of my personal heroes, Sir Winston Churchill, though not a Jew was a strong supporter of Zionism throughout his life. On one trip to Israel, a close friend took me to Tel Hai to learn about the story of Josef Trumpeldor. It was moving to hear the story about the death of the eight Jewish pioneers in 1920 but even more touching was to see the memorial to 12 reservists from the 9255 Reserve Battalion of the Northern Paratroopers brigade who fell meters away, at the entrance to Kibbutz Kfar Giladi in 2006, during the Second Lebanon War. Standing at the monument and overlooking the beautiful panorama that is Northern Israel I thought about the connection between the two incidents; one in 1920 and one in 2006: Jews have been prepared to fight, and die, so that we can be, in the words of Naftali Herz Imber, “a free people in our own land”.
One thing I clearly remember from my childhood was the stories that my grandfather would tell me about his experiences in the Red Army during the Second World War. His commitment to serving at the time was even more poignant to me given that he was a Jew. I think that ultimately my decision to volunteer to serve in the IDF came from a combination of my interpretation of Zionism and determination to defend the Jewish people in our land, inspiration from my grandfather and the idea for a continuation of a military tradition in my family.
When I announced to my family that I would be putting my university plans on hold in order to join the IDF, my decision was met with shock and even disappointment from some members. It was the first time in my life that I had to make an independent decision, which could affect the rest of my life as well as the relationship with some people who are very close to me. Nevertheless I stuck to my judgement and In December 2013 I drafted into the IDF’s Hebrew Course at Mikhve Alon. For three months from morning till night I, and 400 other new immigrants or ‘olim hadashim’ spent our time learning Hebrew on the course to receive positions in the army. Learning a new language can be challenging at first, but knowing that I had to become proficient in Hebrew in order to pursue my dreams led me to persevere and at the end of part of the Hebrew course my commander awarded me with a tag for outstanding achievement. I had my eyes on joining a combat unit, and in the months before the draft into the Infantry Corps one thing was constantly on the back of my mind: my Asthma. In March 2014, after denying this fact to the medical review board and successfully completing the Hebrew course, I was on a bus headed to the training base of the IDF’s famed Givati Infantry Brigade.
Like most young cadets who graze the sandy paths of Givati’s training base in the middle of the Negev desert I quickly adapted to my new military routine. I would not let Asthma destroy my hope of being a combat soldier. It was tough. Sometimes after long runs and marches I would spend considerable periods of time hidden in the bathrooms under pretence of having stomach trouble when in fact I was trying to catch my breath and take doses of an inhaler. However, as my physical abilities increased the situation became more and more manageable. Stirred on by Churchill’s message to “never give in…in anything great or small, large or petty” I continued with Infantry training to the best of my ability. As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, Operation Protective Edge came halfway through our training period. We continued with training but I felt that it had much more meaning to each and every fighter as every day we were warned that at any time we could be called up to join the fight. Throughout Operation Protective Edge the IDF lost 64 soldiers as well as many more wounded. 3 of those soldiers were recent immigrants to Israel, much like me; Max Steinberg and Nissim Sean Carmeli from the USA and Jordan Bensemhoun from France. Like Jewish pioneers of the 1920’s and reservists in 2006, in the summer of 2014 Jews paid the price so that the Nation of Israel can continue to live in the Land of Israel in freedom and without tyranny.
Operation Protective Edge ended, my company returned to Infantry training and life continued. In early September 2014 I stood in the centre of the Yoav Fortress in Southern Israel as my platoon commander placed the purple beret of the Givati Brigade on my head, symbolising the end of the training period and becoming a fully fledged member of the brigade. At the time of writing, this had been the proudest moment of my life. My company joined my new battalion on operations on the border with the Gaza strip for about two months. I spent Hanukah on a stretch of the Gaza Strip, which bordered Kibbutz Nahal Oz, the same Kibbutz that my company was supposed to have been sent to during Operation Protective Edge. We lit the Hanukiah in the ruins of a house, which was hit by Hamas mortars.
Whether a cliché or not, for me, this symbolised yet another distinguishing characteristic of our nation; that out of destruction and darkness we can create light. We then joined the rest of the battalion in a three-month training period in the Judean desert. Training with the battalion is a completely different experience from the previous training that we had undertaken and though difficult, it was one of the most memorable periods of my army career as I was able to push myself to overcome both mental and physical barriers that I never thought I could accomplish. Towards the end of this training period, a few weeks before our whole unit was moving to Israel’s northern border for operational activities we received an alert. After an alleged Israeli strike on a Hezbollah convoy in the Golan Heights, Hezbollah issued a warning that they were going to avenge the deaths of their commanders. Like the previous summer our commanding officer gathered us and told us the news that we may be needed to reinforce Israel’s northern border. The call up came halfway through an exercise my company was conducting with an armoured battalion. Within a few hours we were in buses heading for the northern border. This time we were not 4-month-old cadets, but freshly trained Infantry soldiers. For security reasons I cannot discuss the specifics of our mission in the North of Israel during this period of time but we knew that something would happen.
On January 28th 2015 tragedy struck the Givati Brigade. A jeep carrying Capt. Yochai Kalangel, a company commander in one of our sister battalions, and his driver, Dor Chaim Nini, was hit by an anti tank missile fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon. After a few days of commotion with my unit on high alert in the area we were told to stand down and return to a staging area behind the border. Shabbat was coming soon and my company had spent the better half of the last two weeks sleeping under the stars. We spent Shabbat in a sports hall in Kfar Giladi, the same kibbutz that I had visited as a tourist a few years before. After some much needed sleep I woke up on Saturday morning and went for a run with a friend. After changing in to a fresh uniform we walked down to the entrance of the kibbutz to marvel at the view. In front of me was Tel Hai as well as the memorial to the fallen paratroopers. Words cannot express the feelings and mixed emotions that I experienced standing there on that day. I felt that my return to Kfar Giladi wearing the olive green uniform of the IDF and with the purple beret of the Givati Brigade in my epaulette symbolised another victory of the Nation of Israel over our enemies; that this place, like many others in our state, that has continuously suffered from attack, was alive and thriving, with the soldiers of the IDF watching over it.
My time in the IDF came to an end a few days ago, but the memories of the experiences that I had during my service and some of the friendships that I created will last for a lifetime. I am honoured to be part of the long line of Machal volunteers, which began in 1948 during the War of Independence and continues to thrive until this day. The story of the Jewish people is often one of hardship. At the entrance to the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv hangs a plaque with a quote by Abba Kovner, the poet and partisan leader:
This is the story of a people
Which was scattered
Over all the world and yet
Remained a single family;
A nation which time and again was doomed to destruction
And yet, out of ruins,
Rose to new life.
I am most proud to be a small part of this new life, and this year as we celebrate the State of Israel’s 67th Independence Day my only wish is for the Jewish Nation to continue to be a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, thrive, prosper and be a light unto the nations of the world.
The author is a recently released Mahal Volunteer from England who served in the Forward Company of the 435th ‘Rotem’ Infantry Battalion of the elite Givati Infantry Brigade.
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