July 2 was my birthday—and the 10-year anniversary of our family’s aliyah. I decided to take the day off from work—a job I love, sharing the truth about Israel every day. I thought giving back might help me shake the heaviness I’ve been carrying: the grief of losing my father, layered with the ongoing weight of life at war.
But as it turned out, I was the one who received a gift.
What unfolded was a day that captured everything we came here for: an only-in-Israel mosaic of resilience, unity and meaning.
Like all great Israeli stories, this one didn’t start with a plan. It started with a bed.
A year ago, I bought a bed from a guy named Sammy. We chatted a bit—as you do here—and a year later, even after he had retired and closed his shop, he showed up at our house to help fix the bed. That’s who he is.
During our conversation, he casually mentioned that every Wednesday, he volunteers with a group near Kibbutz Be’eri—yes, that Be’eri, the one that became a symbol of unimaginable loss on Oct. 7, 2023. Since Oct. 8, a man named Shlomi, who started the entire effort, has been there—cooking, delivering and refusing to rest. Sammy joined him about a year ago with a group of other volunteers, setting up grills, prepping tables and turning out hundreds of pitas filled with schnitzel, shakshuka, hamburgers, falafel—whatever they can cook and carry—to deliver to soldiers at outposts all along the Gaza border.
So this Wednesday—my birthday—my husband and I decided to join Sammy on his volunteer adventure. We had no idea what we were getting into.
The morning began in a blur of cutting boards, vats of chopped cucumbers and tomatoes, sweat and smiles. Volunteers moved with quiet purpose, some of them retirees, others walking with canes. Many had made aliyah from across the globe: Australia, London, South Africa. All had come to give.
Ze’ev, who runs a major bagel chain in Israel, was elbow-deep in schnitzel. Wednesday is his day off. “I work harder on Wednesdays than all week,” he told me, grinning. “But I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
At the center of it all was Shlomi—a tough, soft-hearted Israeli from Beersheva who started this entire volunteer operation. He’s been here every single day since Oct. 8, quietly leading the effort to make sure no soldier goes unseen or unfed.
Someone brought out a birthday cake—for Shlomi. It was his birthday, too. In a place like this, where nothing ever feels random, it felt like hashgacha pratit, Divine providence.
Then Sammy loaded us into his off-road jeep and off we went to the south, into places most people wouldn’t dare to go. Not official army bases with neat fences and shaded tents, but dusty backroads along the Gaza border, where clusters of soldiers stood in the blazing heat, guarding the nation.
Many were reservists, some already serving 300 days in this war, leaving behind wives, children, businesses and lives. Others looked like they were barely out of high school in uniforms older than their years. And many, shockingly, hadn’t eaten yet that day.
They weren’t lacking in rations. They had the basics. But it wasn’t about schnitzel in a pita or cold water bottles. What they truly craved—what brought them visible relief—was the TLC: the smiles, the eye contact, the reminder that they are not alone or forgotten.
Why should they be thanking us for a sandwich and a hug? That’s what I kept asking myself as soldier after soldier said thank you. We should be the ones thanking them for standing in the heat so the rest of us can go about our lives. For defending the border while we go to work, take our kids to school, bake challah for Shabbat. It’s because of them that “normal” life is even possible.
I wanted to do what any Jewish mother would: smear sunscreen on their red cheeks and scold them jokingly for their lack of consumed calories that day. I apologized for my lack of hand sanitizer before they ate with their sandy hands. They laughed at me, good-naturedly. (One reassured me, non-convincingly, that he applied sunscreen earlier in the day.)
Everywhere we stopped, Sammy let it slip that it was my birthday (thanks, Sammy), and the soldiers smiled, cheered and sang “Happy Birthday, Jennifer” in Hebrew-accented English. Can you imagine? These exhausted heroes—sweating in the heat, heavy weapons casually slung over their shoulders—sang to me. Their voices made me smile, but my heart ached knowing most of these guys were on their way into Gaza. I wanted them home. I wanted them safe, not spending their youth fighting evil or searching for our hostages held by terrorists.
That’s when Sammy turned to me and said, “Everyone says we’re doing something selfless, volunteering our time. But honestly? We get more than we give. The adrenaline, the smiles from the soldiers; it fills you in a way that nothing else does. It’s addictive.”
And Sammy was right. The act of giving—of showing up—lifted me out of the fog. The kind of fog we’ve all been walking through since the war began. When a rocket exploded nearby on the Gaza border, it didn’t rattle me any more than the sounds I hear back home—an ambulance siren, a barking dog, a garbage truck clanging down the street. After nearly two years of missiles and red alerts blaring from our phones in the middle of the night, everything has become equally jarring—and equally numb. But there’s something powerful that volunteering does: It pulls you out of your own head and into purpose. When the world feels out of control, helping someone else reminds you what is still in your hands. It sparks something in the soul that no medication can replicate—hope, clarity, connection.
Later that afternoon, I returned from the Gaza border to Rehovot, our little hometown bubble. My family wanted to take me out for a birthday dinner to close the day on a lighter note. We drank good wine. We laughed. We got ice cream. And yet, even at the counter, I couldn’t escape the duality of life here. The mall’s glass was still shattered from the Iranian missile attack. Whole storefronts were boarded up. It felt surreal to be eating dessert in a place where the windows were still blown out from a direct hit barely two weeks ago.
We headed home, grateful and a little drained. I had promised myself no news today—just one day off. But as we turned onto our street, I saw it: a silent crowd lining the road. Flags in hand. Faces sad. The unmistakable signs of an impending funeral.
I checked my WhatsApp. A 19-year-old soldier from Rehovot, Matan, had been killed in Gaza, not far from where I had stood earlier that day, handing out pitas to his brothers-in-arms. I traded out my dressy heels from dinner for flip-flops, wrapped myself in an Israeli flag and walked out onto the street to accompany him to his final resting place. As is custom here, as is human here. We stand together to bury each other’s children. In these moments, nobody carries protest signs, but everyone holds our blue-and-white flag. There is no left or right, religious or secular—only pain, which we all carry together.
Tears came. Not just for Matan or for Ronel, who we buried here last week, whose grave nearby is still fresh. But for all the soldiers I met on my birthday outing. For the one who blew me a kiss from the back of their jeep. Who made a heart sign with his hands before I watched him and his unit cross into Gaza. I may not be his mother, but they are all our children. And like so many other parents of soldiers, I take comfort knowing that somewhere out there, another mother or father is offering my son the same TLC that I offered theirs.
This week marks 10 years since my family made aliyah. A decade of building a life here. A decade of learning that in Israel, birthdays aren’t just for getting; they’re for giving. That’s why, on your Hebrew birthday, there’s a custom to offer blessings to others.
And on my birthday, I received the greatest gift: the privilege of being able to give to those who protect us.
To our friends in the Diaspora who wonder what life is really like here, it’s this. It’s driving down unmarked roads in 100-degree heat with a trunk full of sandwiches and love. It’s soldiers singing Happy Birthday to you while you silently pray they make it home. It’s a bed guy, a bagel guy and a tough-looking Israeli named Shlomi, all of them angels in disguise. It’s schnitzel cooked in memory of the fallen, wrapped in hope for the living. It’s a country at war that refuses to stop caring, refuses to stop giving and refuses to stop being a light unto the nations.
And it’s knowing—deep in your bones—that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
Written in loving memory of my father, Yerachmiel ben Shifra and Aaron, of blessed memory, whose love and voice still guide me, and in whose merit I hope to continue giving.