Leaving loved ones and familiar settings behind, these new immigrants from the U.S. courageously joined the IDF as lone soldiers; Amid war, they took brief reserves leaves to settle into their new homeland and selflessly chose to forsake their previous lives to aid in the IDF's victory.
The October 7 attack on Israel prompted a number of American Jews to courageously leave their careers and families to make Aliyah to Israel and join the war effort. This was facilitated by Nefesh B’Nefesh, in partnership with the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, and JNF-USA.
Yael Simon (26) grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. In 2015, she came alone to study at a seminary in Jerusalem and fell in love with Israel. She said, “The strength of Israel and the warm embrace of Israelis moved me from the first second, and I felt that this is where I was going to live and raise my children.”
In 2018, when Yael was 21 years old, she decided to enlist in the IDF as a lone soldier, as part of the FIDF-Nefesh B’Nefesh Lone Soldiers Program, and served as an infantry instructor. “It was an amazing and empowering experience for me, and I am proud that when my future children ask me what I did in the army, I will be able to tell them and be a role model for them.”
After her release from the IDF, Yael decided to return to the US and begin a degree in neuroscience at Columbia University, which she graduated in May of this year. “The dream of making Aliyah and living in Israel did not die and was always in my thoughts,” she emphasized. She began the Aliyah process just a few months ago. At the onset of the war, she received a call from her officer, and Yael knew what she had to do: Find every possible way to expedite her Aliyah date and join the reserves. And that’s what she did.
“When I heard the news from Israel, it was immediately clear to me that this was the plan – to get to Israel as soon as possible and give my country everything I have,” she explains. “This is my home. Here I learned how to protect the country in the best way possible. Here I feel more secure than in any other country in the world, especially given the rising Antisemitism. In America, as a Jew, you always feel like a bystander, but I want to be in the field, not just in my thoughts but physically, and I can only do this in Israel. That’s why I left everything and came to join the efforts of the people of Israel, with the goal of protecting our country and ensuring that we will have a home and a nation – because this is ultimately all that we have, no matter what anyone says.”
About a month ago, on October 31, Yael made Aliyah to Israel and arrived at her new home in Tel Aviv, where she was waiting to be assigned to the reservists so that she could assist the IDF. My role in active duty was to train young men on how to operate defense equipment, and the plan was to bring all the skills and tools that I gained in my service and contribute as much as I could to our collective goal of defeating the enemy and bringing peace to the State of Israel and its citizens.”
Yael is now waiting for the call from her officer for further orders. “After all, this is what I came to do, to serve. In the meantime, I am finishing a medics course with United Hatzalah, volunteering with Magen David Adom with blood donations, assisting families from the South and collecting donations for soldiers. There is a family here from the town of Netivot that I adopted. They were evacuated to Tel Aviv, and I am doing everything I can to help them.”
Yael also has plans to study medicine in Tel Aviv or Be’er Sheva, which will have to wait until the end of the war, even though her family and friends want her in the US. “They are afraid, but they understand that my heart is here, and nothing will take me from here, so they are proud of me. I have a lot of faith in God and a lot of confidence in our soldiers who know how to do the job, and because of these things we’re invincible. True, there are victims we hear about in the news, but I have no reason to be afraid. Here, at home, I feel the safest.”
All of these young individuals made Aliyah to Israel through Nefesh B’Nefesh, in cooperation with the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, and JNF-USA.
Approximately 5,000 lone soldiers from around the world are currently serving in the IDF active duty and reserves. “These are young men and women who decided to leave their routines, their family, friends, and even academic and career opportunities, in order to make Aliyah to Israel alone and enlist in the IDF to fulfill a significant military service,” said Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Nefesh B’Nefesh.
Through “Operation Hug,” a new initiative by Nefesh B’Nefesh, JNF-USA, and Friends of the IDF (FIDF), parents of lone soldiers are able to come to Israel from around the world on El Al flights and meet their loved ones for the first time since the beginning of the war.