After only three days of volunteering in Israel, a friendship between a young man from Boston and a young woman from Montreal blossomed into romance.
Rebecca Starr and Benjamin (Benji) Katz are among countless Diaspora Jews who immediately volunteered to join the war effort in Israel after the shocking massacre perpetrated by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
Starr, 29, is an English and mathematics teacher at a Jewish school in Montreal. The daughter of a Moroccan mother and an Ashkenazi father, she was raised in a Zionist home and was always proud of her Jewish heritage.
Katz, 31, born and raised in Boston, works for a sports merchandise marketing company for baseball players in Miami. He, too, grew up in a staunchly Zionist family and spent a year in Israel after high school. He has always been active in the Jewish community and has a sister who lives in northern Israel.