Thursday, September 20, 2012

Lone soldiers

Lone Soldiers are volunteers in the IDF who come from abroad and don't have parents or family in Israel.  What is interesting is that the number of Lone Soldiers in the IDF is increasing and there are now over 5,000 of them.  The IDF has established a program to help them get accustomed to life in Israel and there are groups of Israeli volunteers that cater to their needs.  Unlike other soldiers, Lone Soldiers don't have homes to go to when they are off duty, so houses have been established in several main cities where they can go to stay and meet other Lone Soldiers.  Also there are programs that "adopt" Lone Soldiers on kibbutzim and in homes and families in Israel to help them feel less alone. They make Israeli friends in the service and are invited to their homes during holidays like Rosh Hashanah.  The Government puts on programs for them, such as large dinners and celebrations for Rosh Hashanah and other holidays, at which Generals and leading Israeli politicians are present, such as President Peres, PM Netanyahu and Speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin.
Most of these Lone Soldiers are Jewish and they come from all over the world, USA, Britain, Colombia, France, Australia, and they form a considerable cadre of trained and dedicated soldiers.  They form life-long friendships and sometimes even marriages.  Many of them decide to stay in Israel or go back to their own communities and make aliyah later.  They strengthen the pro-Israel tendencies among Jewish youth around the world.  Lone soldiers participate in all the training programs of the IDF, including krav maga (hand-to-hand combat), a uniquely Israeli form of karate, or manual self-defence, that was invented by Imi Lichtenfeld, a boxer and wrestler who developed this method from street fighting techniques he learned while protecting the Jewish community in Bratislava during the 1930s.  If any Lone Soldiers were to be molested or attacked by anti-Semites when they return to their countries in the Diaspora, then their attackers might be in for a rude surprise.  These young soldiers know how to defend themselves.
Among these Lone Soldiers are a smattering of non-Jews, gentiles, often Christians, who have a belief in the right of the Jewish people to inhabit their homeland, the Land of the Bible.  Sometimes these Christians are fundamentalists, for example from the American South, who have been brought up on the Old Testament, as they call the Jewish Bible, and are very pro-Israel, both religiously and politically.  Others are just adventurers who hope to get a bit of excitement in the Israeli forces.  Of course, the IDF does rigorous background checks to ensure that no messianic Christians who would try to convert Israeli soldiers, or even malicious anti-Israel elements, manage to slip in. 
In general, the Lone Soldiers are a new phenomenon in Jewish history, where Jewish youth from the galut (exile) come to the Jewish homeland, Israel, to be trained as soldiers, and then go back and strengthen their far-flung communities.
 

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