Volunteerism has been the great untold story of Israel’s response to Oct 7. While CNN focuses on bombs falling in Gaza and urban warfare, much of the real action that has enabled a small nation to continue functioning even with a massive call up of reserve soldiers has been the incredible number of people who have stepped up.
From housewives baking cookies to people bringing washing machines on pickup trucks so soldiers can wash their clothes, the response has been incredible. Reserve soldiers have gone away only to have neighbors run their businesses and take care of their homes. And there have also been a lot of volunteers coming from abroad.
The ‘cowboys’ visiting Israel made headlines, but there have been plenty of volunteers, Jewish and non-Jewish, coming over.
Recently, Polly Levine, the daughter of longtime David Horowitz Freedom Center supporter Tammy Steinsapir volunteered in Israel, and wrote about her experiences for the Jewish Journal.
On the Wednesday of my week-long volunteering mission, I found myself back in southern Israel, near Be’er Sheva, at an IDF base preparing food boxes for the soldiers in Gaza. I was surprised to see hundreds of volunteers from all over the world: Australia, Great Britain, South Africa, France, Mexico and beyond. It was quite heartwarming and only confirms my belief that we are a people of unity and problem solvers.
Everyone volunteering at the base worked together on an assembly line, making boxes, adding stickers, and filling them with canned food and dried soup. Never one for self-pity, we Jews do what must be done – a spirit that has sustained us for 4,000 years.
On my last morning, I arrived on the bus with my eyes half closed, only to learn I would be heading to a farm near Haifa to plant broccoli. Immediately, I perked up as being in an open field on a warm day was most certainly my happy place. We ended up planting broccoli seedlings. It is laborious yet gratifying. The sandy earth was a gorgeous color and had a soft smell. Surrounded by cypress trees, I literally felt as if I was in an impressionist painting.
It’s a lovely story and well worth reading in its entirety, but it’s also one of many such stories.
By focusing on the war, Hamas supporters have made that the story in order to make the terrorists into the victims, but a big part of the story, the real untold story, is how Israelis and people from around the world pulled together in the face of evil.