"Sometimes in Israel we are taken for granted. And then you arrive in New York and the treatment you receive is like a hero. And it's amazing, and for one moment you forget all the difficulties", shares Or Purat.
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Minutes before Shabbat I met Or and Ofir Anidjar in the lobby of the Ramot Resort hotel, where they had arrived on behalf of the organization "Belev Echad" (One Heart). This is an association that has made caring for fighters who were injured in combat, sacrificing their bodies and souls for the State of Israel, only to be left with visible and invisible wounds. Every year these fighters, who served in operations and wars, go out for a weekend funded by generous donors, experiencing the camaraderie of fighters and finding solace in conversations with their friends.
Video: The terrorist incident in Operation Protective Edge / Arab social media
Through the window, we looked at the magical sunset and the last rays of sun glaring off the waters of the Kinneret. In chairs next to us several American tourists were talking about the tour they had been on that day, but Or and Ofir were already in a world of their own.
"I enlisted in the IDF in 2011," Or recounts. He can't share many details about his service in the army. In the army, he was in the Duvdevan unit, an elite unit that employs fighters disguised as Arabs to integrate into the Palestinian population in cities and work to apprehend wanted persons. After he was released from military service he enlisted in the operational unit of the Shin Bet security agency, which is the most elite and classified unit in the Israeli General Security Service.
"In October 2016 we were chasing a terrorist who wanted to murder Jews. His brother had murdered a policeman and a woman two days earlier and we had to capture the terrorist before he committed a terror attack. When we broke into the house he threw an explosive device at us. I managed to see the bomb. I heard someone yell and then everything exploded around me. I felt everything was wet around me, and only afterward I realized it was my own blood. My friends evacuated me to a restaurant and treated me until the evacuation."
"I woke up in a hospital room and asked the doctor 'When can I go back to activity, to defend the country?' The doctor was silent and then said 'Listen, I don't know if you'll ever be able to walk like you used to.' I had two options – to fight for my life or give up. I chose to fight. The association helped me, showed me the way".
Ofir sits aside and is silent. He was an officer in the Combat Engineering Corps. He began his military service in Gaza, in one of the most traumatic events of those years. An armored vehicle exploded from a huge explosive device, and their friends had to crawl to find pieces of their bodies. Ofir, then a young soldier, was in a position above them and saw the horror. Three years later he was an officer in an army bulldozer breaking through in Lebanon, as part of the Second Lebanon War, in a battle later known as the Battle of the Saluki Stream. It was a traumatic battle in which many fighters lost their lives. A fighter who was in the bulldozer next to Ofir was killed, and he was only lightly wounded.
"I was very lucky," he says. "I drove over more than 50 explosive charges. I took RPG rockets and Kornet rockets. In Lebanon, I replaced 14 bulldozers that were hit by rockets. I was lucky enough to escape any hit. I had minor injuries, glass, scratches, and maybe a slight hearing loss. Nothing serious."
But his luck ran out in Operation Protective Edge in 2014. A year earlier he was discharged from military service, went traveling abroad, and returned. And then the military operation began. "It was three months before my wedding. They called me up for reserve duty and told me that my mission was to establish a new unit in the IDF. We took civilian drilling machines and went into Gaza to find the terror tunnels." In those days the tunnels were an almost unknown threat, and Ofir was called up to establish a special unit that would protect civilians and soldiers from the underground danger.
"Within a week and a half, we found 16 terror tunnels crossing the border between Gaza and Israel. The army sent us to find another tunnel, which started in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood in Gaza and according to the intelligence we received ended under the dining hall of Kibbutz Be'eri. We started working at eight in the morning, and at seven in the evening, when the sun was in the eyes of the soldiers guarding us, the terrorists emerged from the ground and fired a Kornet missile at us."
"The rocket hit behind me and and threw me in the air. The fact that I'm alive is a miracle. I was wounded by shrapnel all over my body. The bulletproof vest and helmet on my head saved my life. I lost the ability to walk, and suffered brain damage, but I had a goal to meet – I had to stand on my feet for the wedding." Within three months Ofir managed to stand on his feet at his wedding.
Ofir and Or are not alone. In Israel's wars and various operations, large and small, many fighters have been wounded. Others were severely wounded in serious attacks and left scarred in body and soul. An hour after speaking with the two, the Saturday night dinner ended and we stayed together to talk when suddenly I noticed there was a commotion on one side of the room, around one person.
In a wheelchair sat Yonatan Levin. He was an officer in the paratroopers brigade and was critically wounded in the Second Lebanon War. He is the most severely wounded soldier from that war. The doctors managed to save his life but at a difficult price. He is unable to move any part of his body and communicates by blinking his eyes and with the help of an assistant who knows how to move one muscle in his chest that still works, allowing him to write his messages.
"He didn't lose his sense of humor," said the assistant to the warriors who had gathered around him. With endless patience, she helped Yonatan communicate with his fellow fighters and explain what he is going through. "Does it still hurt?," one of the fighters couldn't hold back and asked. Yonatan slowly blinked his eyes and the assistant helped him write. The audience was silent for a long minute and then she said the words: "It hurts, but I'm trying to get used to it." And this is perhaps the essence of the "Belev Echad" organization – everyone is hurting, but they need help getting used to it.
The Belev Echad (meaning One Heart) organization has existed since 2010, when it was founded by Rabbi Uriel Vigler and the Jewish community in New York. In the early days, the purpose of the association was to fly injured fighters on pampering vacations to New York. The association would locate the fighters and take them on a vacation like no other they could have imagined. "Suddenly they look at you completely differently, like a hero," Or recounts. "It's an amazing feeling."
One of the fighters who came to the organization was Raz Budani, today the director of the association. He catches me for a conversation and we sneak into an invisible corner in the lobby. "If they see me we won't be able to get a word out," he smiles. In shorts and a t–shirt he is the opposite of what you would expect from the director of a large organization, but he says that's exactly the point. "I'm one of the fighters. I don't want to become a bureaucratic director. I come to the biggest donors and speak to them eye to eye. That's how I think this organization should look. We're here with the fighters, together with the fighters."
He was a respected officer in the Golani brigade when Operation Cast Lead began in Gaza in 2008. He was with the commander of the Golani brigade in a house hit by a missile. "I was wounded all over my body by shrapnel. In the eyes, hands, everything. At first, I couldn't see anything and tried opening my eyes to see if I was alive."
He underwent rehabilitation and wanted to prove to himself that he was capable of doing the impossible. Within just three months he was back on his feet and returned to the unit. And then the second blow came. "A terrorist carried out a ramming attack and wounded me again. Here I broke. I was alive, but dead inside. There was no quick rehabilitation this time, I sank into myself."
Raz was discharged from the IDF and sank into depression and inactivity. A few years later he was offered to go to New York for a flight on behalf of "Belev Echad". "It was an amazing flight, pampering from wall to wall, but when I got back I suddenly realized it was just a temporary break. When Rabbi Vigler called to ask how it was I told him 'That's it? What do I do now?'. Rabbi Vigler turned the question back to me and I told him there needs to be continuity. There needs to be a place that will embrace the fighters all year round."
The result, a few years later, is the activity of the "Belev Echad" organization in Israel. Alongside the flights to the United States, which still take place, the organization maintains a home in Kiryat Ono which members of the association, about 500 in number, can visit every day. To eat a hot meal, to talk, to receive various treatments and even a haircut or a relaxing swim in the pool. Physical, mental, financial assistance – whatever they need. All in order to embrace them and bring them back into life, not to leave them alone.
The annual vacation is the highlight. Every year the fighters, men and women alike, come to the Ramot resort hotel, located on the slopes of the Golan Heights, for a unique vacation. "My budget allows me to bring a top performer here or take the fighters to much more luxurious hotels, but that's not what I want," says Raz. "I want to bring the fighters closer together, to allow them to speak to each other."
For this reason the schedule is not tight, and pushes the fighters to engage in active rather than passive activities. Instead of a performer in front of an audience, members of the association participate in campfire games, and on Saturday afternoon there is a prize competition that challenges the fighters to dream and imagine, to push themselves forward.
"We are thrilled to be able to host our beloved soldiers again for a weekend of rejuvenation and transformation" says Rabbi Uriel Vigler. "We see firsthand how much these few days help them in their recovery. The best therapy for our soldiers is to have each other, to connect, to talk, to bond and to share their experiences together. The bonds and connections that are forged between the soldiers during this weekend remain forever".
On the edge of the pool the fighters set up a table laden with beers and various drinks. Summer fruits, sweets, snacks, provisions to keep them for hours with their friends so they can come together as one group. In order to unite them, the fighters are required not to bring their family members, and a camaraderie atmosphere is created at the hotel, the military bonhomie that some of them still miss to this day. Young men's games, young men's bonhomie, for people who most days of the year run on the treadmill like the rest of us and can't lift their heads and let their feelings out.
"This association does what's missing for people like Itzik Saidian and Bar Kelef who set themselves on fire because they didn't get recognition. We need this embrace, the feeling of what you went through," says Ofir. "When I got to the Ministry of Defense I had to prove I was injured. For heaven's sake, Hamas filmed the hit on me, and I still had to get a lawyer and prove it. It's absurd. I commanded quite a few people who were injured, but they never called to ask me if this or that soldier under my command was injured. The association gives us the feeling that someone is with us, that someone is embracing us."
"If I wanted to get something out of this article," says Or, "it's for the donors to know how much good they're doing. For these people we represent them, we're one people. The words, the support, the love, are so meaningful for us. Without the association I don't know where I'd be today. Thanks to the association I'm a lawyer, I finished my studies, I have a therapy dog. I got everything I needed to succeed. In Israel The residents kind of forget about us, the IDF wounded, and in the United States we feel seen."
Raz summarizes by saying that as far as he is concerned, he wants to connect the fighters, men and women alike, who were injured under their common denominator, and prove to them that they are not alone. "For four years I was alone, no one knew what I was going through. To people I was the esteemed officer, the one who can overcome any difficulty, and it was also hard for me to get out of that perception. All my life I've been fighting the sense of pride I had as an officer who was on the top of the world. I want to bring what I learned to others as well. I want to bring a person who was just now injured in operational activity. Not in a car accident or slipped in the kitchen, but fought for the people of Israel, and connect him to people like himself, tell them they'll never be alone."
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