Expats come to Israel for the Gaza war

Josh Ulansey was in the middle of his last year of law school at UC Davis when the war between Israel and Hamas began. He says he was awake all night watching the death toll from the Hamas terrorist attacks rise. Then came news of the hostages.

“I knew I had to come back, whether I could make it into my unit or not, whether I could even make it into the army or not,” Ulansey, cradling his army-issued M-16 told The Jerusalem Post. “I needed to be back with my team. Just knowing that my friends were out in the field protecting the country that we all love, I just knew I wouldn’t be able to focus on my studies anyway.”

It was not an easy journey. His passport had expired, so he flew to Seattle for an emergency passport renewal. When he arrived in Israel, the army said it had no room for him after more than 300,000 reservists were called up. He volunteered with various civilian groups for a week, then talked his way into an army unit that was guarding settlements in the West Bank.

Eventually, he was able to return to his paratrooper reserve unit, where he had been a lone soldier seven years earlier. He has been stationed right on the Lebanese border and has even exchanged fire with Hezbollah gunmen. Yet he has no doubt that he made the right decision to come.

“In America I just felt helpless and felt like my people were under attack,” he said. “Here I feel safer and vastly emotionally healthier. Even on the Lebanese border I feel safer than I did standing in front of the Kebab House in Davis, California. There, I felt antisemitism coming from people who I thought were my friends.”

Israelis abroad flood home to serve their country

There are no statistics on how many Israeli reservists have returned to take part in the war, and the IDF Spokesman said it had no statistics available. But more than 200,000 Israelis came from abroad in the first 10 days of the war, and it’s likely that most of them were soldiers.

Many had “Tzav 8” or emergency call-up orders; others came even if they weren’t called. The Israeli press reported a more than 100% response to the call-up orders, with many who hadn’t been called up showing up and demanding to be allowed to join.

Eli M. (whose last name cannot be used because he is in a special rescue unit) was working as an emissary for Ohr Torah Stone in the UK for the past six years. He’s 38, a father of four, and his oldest celebrated his bar mitzvah during the war. Eli managed to fly back for the bar mitzvah weekend and then return to his unit.

“There was no hesitation about going back [to Israel for the war],” he told the Post. “I know what my unit does, and I knew it was needed. I packed my stuff in about 20 minutes on Shabbat, went back to the synagogue to say goodbye to my wife and kids, and I left. I got on a flight and arrived in Israel on Sunday (the day after the war began).

He says that it is challenging being away from his family, and like Ulansey he is serving on the northern border, where tensions between Israel and Hezbollah are increasing. But he says there have been a lot of positive experiences.

“So many people who don’t know me have helped me personally,” he said. “Both Ohr Torah Stone and my wife’s organization, Jewish Futures, helped to get equipment to my unit. And there is this sense of mission that goes beyond any limits and dividers that there used to be in Israeli society, and it is just tremendously positive and uplifting.”

He says he is not sure how long he will stay, and “it depends on the war,” but he believes he made the right decision. He says that the war has reinforced many Israelis’ feeling of a shared history and connection to the state.

“This is my home, and the fact that I’m living elsewhere doesn’t make it not my home.”

Beyond soldiers, there are also thousands of volunteers, both Israelis and Diaspora Jews, who have come to offer whatever help they can. Tali Speizman is an Israeli physical therapist who moved to New York to pursue a doctorate and is working at Mount Sinai Medical Center. She says she knew that many of her former colleagues at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, would be called up to serve, so she quickly made the decision to come and volunteer. Her supervisors at Mount Sinai were supportive, she said, and her co-workers even donated some of their vacation time to her.

“I got the news of what happened between Friday and Saturday when I came back from a friend’s birthday,” she said. “I heard what happened and stayed on the news. Since then I think I haven’t turned off the news. I knew that this was not an ordinary flare-up – it was a massacre. And I knew that I was needed, and I’m very cool with my decision.”

Speizman says she has treated several of the victims of the October 7 Hamas massacre, including a 46-year-old man who was hurt trying to protect his family and has a severe brain injury. He was in the ICU for several weeks and is now facing a long rehabilitation.

There is also the grandmother who laid on top of her grandchildren to save them when Hamas terrorists attacked. She and the grandchildren survived, but she has grenade fragments in her legs.

“There are a lot of horrible injuries in both civilians and soldiers,” she said.

The Hamas attack has also hit her personally. Four members of her father’s family were killed on October 7. She has friends who have been called up for reserve duty.

“We need to fight for each other, and we need to help each other,” she said.