A day before his latest stint of Israeli military reserve duty, Tuvia Eden was running a half-marathon in Tel Aviv.
The 42-year-old Israeli farmer and father of eight, who serves as a company commander in the IDF Armored Corps, was no stranger to reserve duty, having served a whopping 450 days since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, sparked a multi-front war.
Two days before Passover, with his wife nine months pregnant, Eden was injured in Lebanon when shrapnel from a Hezbollah drone packed with some 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of explosives shattered his kneecap as he was working on his tank, which was parked near the sea north of Naqoura.
“I couldn’t move at all,” he recounted to JNS this week. “But I didn’t want to worry my wife since she was nine months pregnant, so I called her first and told her I was OK.”
He was flown by helicopter to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva for surgery and managed to get to his sister’s home in time for Passover.
Two weeks later, it turned out that the operation had not succeeded and he required additional surgery. While Eden was undergoing his second knee operation, his wife gave birth.
Rehab at ADI Negev
The ever-active cherry tomato farmer was ordered to rest for two-and-a-half months and keep his leg elevated.
“I needed to use a rope just to lift my leg to get into bed,” he said. “Even when I was up, I was limping and couldn’t lift my leg at all.”
Meanwhile, friends from his agricultural community of Bnei Netzarim in the Negev Desert near the Egyptian border tended to his fields.
After a challenging spring at home, he began rehabilitation in June at the ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran rehabilitation village in southern Israel, where his mother-in-law was being treated for a pelvic fracture.
ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran was founded in 2005 by Maj. Gen. (res.) Doron Almog, a former head of the IDF Southern Command, and his wife, Didi. The 40-acre rehabilitation village is named for their late son Eran, who was born with severe autism and intellectual disabilities and inspired Almog’s work on behalf of people with disabilities.
Almog, who today chairs the Jewish Agency for Israel, remains chairman of the village, which includes residential facilities, special education and a rehabilitation hospital serving southern Israel
“It became a family affair,” Eden said. “And it was close to my home.”
After three months of physiotherapy and hydrotherapy at the center, where he encountered other reservists he knew who had been wounded in the war, Eden has regained most of the motion in his knee.
His doctor says it will take about a year for him to fully recover.
“Tuvia came to me with 10 degrees of motion, barely able to extend his knee,” said Dr. Shilo Kramer, who directs orthopedic rehabilitation at the center. “We got his knee back to 110 degrees, with only 20 to go.”
Kramer, who moved to Israel from Long Island six years ago, said his patient’s progress has been nothing short of remarkable.
“He went surfing and could stand on a board,” he said. “I couldn’t do that, and I am not injured.”
‘Curing the body and the spirit’
Kramer said about a quarter of the patients in the relatively small, 40-bed unit are soldiers.
“The main thing that stands out here is that we don’t just work to cure the body but the spirit,” he said.
As for Eden, he is back to planting a new crop of cherry tomatoes in his fields and has informed his army unit that he is ready to roll again.
“My wife said maybe it is time to finish with the reserve duty, but I feel it is my responsibility,” he said. “I am happy to continue and proud to continue. I thank God I am alive and try to live the big picture.”
