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Mostly Cloudy Supporting Israeli soldiers
EMJC members volunteer at military base
Witnessing a routine activity at an Israel Defense Forces base just north of Be’er Sheva left East Meadowite Neal H. Zuckerman verklempt, he said.
Zuckerman and seven other East Meadow Jewish Center congregants — Heidi Mermelstein-Landau, Mark and Susan Bernstein, Jay and Marcia Zinger, Steven Zaientz and Carey Welt — arrived at the base on March 6. Before they began long, tiring days of work, they watched a flag-raising ceremony alongside military personnel and hundreds of others who also came to volunteer on the base.
One day, the base commander started singing the Israeli national anthem. Everyone joined in, and Zuckerman was overwhelmed. “It was very emotional to me because it had been abstract before,” he said. “I had been to Israel some years ago, doing the tourist stuff. But on this trip, we got into how they got there. That was much more significant to me.”
The EMJC members spent a week learning about and living with Israeli soldiers, all while taking on community service projects on the base. Volunteers for Israel, an American nonprofit organization that has taken more than 5,000 people on missions to Israel in the past five years, sponsored the trip.
The group first learned about VFI from their rabbi, Ronald Androphy. The Bernsteins had visited Israel twice before, but Susan explained that this triP offered them the chance to make a difference in the lives of IDF officers.
“We wanted to learn about the soldiers, face to face,” she said. “What are they really like? What are their backgrounds? What are their hopes? What are their expectations?”
Mark Bernstein noted that many of the soldiers they met were just 18, and were eager to practice their English while having dinner with their visitors. One young man played guitar for them, and several expressed their desire to travel when they completed their tours of duty.
Jay Zinger pointed out that the travelers also learned about the personal sacrifices IDF officers have had to make. For instance, one soldier he spoke with had taken a huge pay cut in order to be stationed closer to home and see his wife every night, instead of once a month.
