‘We are all Jews here!’: Volunteering with Sar-El during Israel’s worst war

My three weeks of volunteering with Sar-El – the National Project for Volunteers for Israel from December 31, 2023, to January 18, 2024, will stay with me forever. I will tell you what motivated me to go; the response of the people I met; what I think I may have contributed; what I gained; and why you should go.

The second I learned of Hamas’s attack on October 7, I dropped everything and went to Israel, by myself, as did so many others. My husband, family, and friends understandably expressed concern about my safety. I told them that while I wasn’t looking to be in harm’s way, Israel was the only place to be because “Never again is now.”

At Sar-El, you experience every range of emotion, and some you didn’t know you had. I met people from all over the world – France, South Africa, the UK, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, many of whom were not Jewish but simply felt a need to help Israel. You work from Sunday to Thursday on tasks which help to relieve the IDF reservists. My first week involved packing medical kits; second week, making food packages; third week, sorting soldiers’ uniforms and sleeping bags.

As I was loading IV bags into a medical pouch, I asked the woman next to me what she does for a living. She said she had a PhD in pharmacology. I smiled and asked myself what country, other than Israel, can manage to get PhDs to drop everything, travel at their own expense, and load items for hours on a fast moving assembly line! The medical pouches you pack are in a certain order – i.e., sutures first, then surgical scissors, etc. That is because a physician may be treating a wounded soldier in darkness and can therefore depend upon the order in the pouch to quickly reach for which instrument is needed.

You meet before work for flag raising. A moment of silence is held for soldiers who were just killed. The ache you feel stays with you in a place you try to keep compartmentalized so that you can get on with it. But the ache never goes away fully. Nor should it. You will see the hustle and bustle of daily life in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, people at the beach, shopping, going to work, and be humbled by the resilience of the Israelis while they carry the burdens and joys of being a Jew with dignity, courage, determination, and pride.

Lunch is a delicious buffet, in a large cafeteria with soldiers and other volunteers. I sat next to soldiers who were as eager to hear my thoughts as I was to hear theirs. Almost all began the conversation by telling me how much they appreciated my being a volunteer. I told them it is a privilege to be able to volunteer; it is the least I could do. Some worried that Israel is becoming isolated in the world. A few asked if the majority of Americans still support Israel. They said that seeing the volunteers helps them to sustain hope for the future. I told them I have my own blog in The Times of Israel and am a regular contributor to The Jewish Voice newspaper in Brooklyn, New York, and have given talks for Israel. They were surprised and said how much hearing that meant to them. I wanted to help them feel they are not alone, that we support them. I hope I succeeded in this small way. When I went to shake their hands goodbye, I always got a big hug right after the handshake, which will stay with me forever. I met a soldier from Chechnya. I said, “You’re a long way from home.” He said, “This is my home.” I can still see each and every one of their faces.

On Wednesday evenings, the team gathers after dinner to express their thoughts and feelings about volunteering. I asked, and was given permission, to present a piece I wrote to our group. “I said, ‘My story is our story. I am a retired social worker. My husband tells me that retired social workers are a dangerous lot – always up to something!”

“We are all Jews here”

My mother was a French Moroccan Jew in Casablanca during World War II. She met my father, who was a soldier. They fell in love. He sent for her to come to America as a war bride. She spoke French and Arabic. When Israel became a nation, her two sisters fled Casablanca. One went to Israel and the other to France. I was in Israel for the first time in 1969. My cousin was a paratrooper in the Six Day War. In 2015, I visited my 95-year-old uncle, Samuel, and aunt Juliette in their nursing home in France. The nursing home was guarded by French soldiers, as were all Jewish facilities at that time, which were under attack. Samuel’s entire family was killed in the Holocaust. During World War II, as a Jewish soldier in France, he fled to Morocco. In Casablanca he joined the Resistance, was captured and tortured, but he survived. And so this war hero, some 70 years later, required armed guards in order to survive, and all because … he is a Jew. Today, we see young Israeli soldiers, with M-16 rifles slung over their shoulders, the dust still visible on their boots, who should be going to parties, planning their lives, but instead are forced to defend against Hamas’s threats of genocide, to be repeated again and again.

In 2014, after Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, I heard the chants of “Jews to the gas chambers; Hitler should have finished the job.” I told myself I had to do something. So I went, by myself, on HonestReporting’s 2015 Mission to Israel to learn techniques to combat media bias. And while there, at a dinner, I sat next to a young soldier. His best friend had been killed because they went house to house rather than conduct larger scale operations in Gaza to avoid civilian casualties, despite the greater risk to themselves. And for that they were still blamed. He asked me, his voice cracking with anguish, why the media blame Israel for defending itself. I had no words for him, other than to gently take his arm, and say, “If they sent all the Jews to Mars, they’d still be blaming us for the world’s woes.”

Nothing changes. Today Israel is once again blamed for defending itself against Hamas’s butchery.

We need to pay homage to a soldier who defined bravery for all of us. In We Are All Jews Here, Lee Habeeb observes, “‘Courage,’ Aristotle wrote, ‘is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.’ And courage is precisely what was on display in a German prison camp over seven decades ago, when one brave American soldier did the unthinkable: Staring down the barrel of his Nazi captor’s pistol, he refused to identify which of his fellow prisoners of war were Jewish, declaring: “We are all Jews here!” His act of defiance would save nearly 200 Jews and earn him, posthumously, the Righteous Among the Nations medal. Only five Americans have earned the distinction. Only one was a soldier. His name was Master Sergeant Roderick “Roddie” Edmonds.

In every town hall, at the US Congress, the Senate, every mayor, governor, every house of worship, every mosque, every church, in every nation, it is time for all to stand up and say, “We are all Jews here.”

Every Jew, everywhere, should take one action, each week, make one phone call, write one letter to combat the Big Lies echoed by mainstream media and hold their representatives, and their Jewish leaders, accountable.How many dead Jews will it take for the world to stand up and declare, “We are all Jews here”?

When I said all this in my talk to Sar-El, I was met with applause, hugs, and was told how “inspiring” it was. Each person in turn told how moving it was to meet so many people who didn’t know each other but instantly felt their commonality of purpose, making us feel like family.

Why you should go to Sar-El: I brought with me an exquisite silver mezuzah, thinking I would simply give it to a needy Israeli family who has suffered loss. A volunteer said she knew a soldier who was shot, still in the hospital recuperating, and how much this would mean to him. I try to imagine his face when receiving this random act of kindness and only hope it helped to make his burdens a little lighter for that moment. We are all feeling, at times, hopeless and helpless. Volunteering is one deeply symbiotic, meaningful way to do something concrete to help. Israelis need to see you, hear you, share with you, your support, your appreciation, your willingness to travel to Israel, and give of yourself. Become a volunteer to celebrate the truth and beauty of Israel with Israelis from all walks of life, from the soldiers, to store clerks, to your fellow volunteers from all over the world.

Our hearts, which were broken after the barbaric massacre, will never be entirely healed. Nothing will ever be the same. But your heart will be made warm again, your resolve fortified with a renewed sense of purpose and meaning. Go. You will have the journey of a lifetime that you will take home with you in your heart. A part of me is still in Israel. And will always be. ■

Ginette Weiner is a published commentator in Jewish and mainstream newspapers, and lecturer on strategies for combating media bias, antisemitism, and BDS. She has an MSW. She resides in Arizona and returned to Israel in November to volunteer again.

For information on volunteering for Sar-El, go to https://www.sar-el.org/.