Gedud HaIvri

I was having a not-too bad calzone at Jerusalem Pizza on 39th and Broadway last month - not bad, considering that Kosher doesn't do Italian too well anywhere. When I walked out, I saw that a group of 5 or 6 young men and women had set up a table with the large poster "HELP SAVE LIVES IN ISRAEL" hanging in front of it. One of them stood behind the rest with a really big Israeli flag - the sort of scene more familiar to Flatbush; it looked kind of out of place, actually, at least to my Brooklyn eyes. But unusual means interesting, so I hung around and talked with them, after a few skeptical lines. Apparently, they were collecting money for airfare to Israel. These kids - most weren't older than 20 - told me that they were going to Israel as volunteers to defend settlements in Judea and Samaria. "Cool," I thought. "Not normal, but definitely cool,". Apparently they've been doing training of some sort back in Brooklyn to prepare them. I, having not much to do the rest of the day, (it was Sunday), hung around for a while. As I was leaving, one of them invited me to train with them next Tuesday. So I went.

I got there at 7:15 for the 7:00 class - there was some big guy with a "IBFICU" shirt and a beret at the door taking attendance. "There" - turned out to be a converted gym down by the water, owned by the synagogue next door. I gave my name, he marked it down, I went in. Since the class had already started and I didn't want to disturb, I did my in-cog-nito thing and slink onto one of the benches in the back of the main room. A pretty Spartan deal, this place was: two pull-up bars and free-weights in one corner, synagogue books in the other, and some mats on the floor. Definitely not Gold's Gym, ha-ha. I slumped down a little bit further.

The guy teaching the class turned out to be a former Marine combat instructor: Dave. The ad on the flier from the city promised a "great.. intensive course for anyone wishing to upgrade their personal defense skills or prepare for the IDF or more elite training". Also promised: "Marine hand-to-hand combat, navigation, first-aid and survival skills, Israeli history and geography." From what I could figure out, today they were working on the pushup section of the course.

Dave, as I later found out, was one of very few Orthodox Jews to ever serve in the USMC's elite Recon unit- he was a trainer. But this was something I learned much later... for now all I knew was that there was a Jew in full military fatigues beating on a class of 25 other Jews and that everyone was there of their own free will. 5 minutes or so after I entered after someone invited me to join in. It was a 2-hour class: ? hour 1.5 hour various drills to learn what we would need to carry out relatively simple guard duties, and a half hour lesson in Jewish history and philosophy. This 10-week crash course was, as it turns out, in its 2nd week.

I liked it: I stayed on, and formally enrolled in the program. We finished out the 10-week session covering everything from the flyer and a little bit more (mostly esoteric USMC stuff) and I, who hadn't been that physically active since high school basketball, found myself really enjoying it.

One thing led to another, and I made the decision to take a semester off from college to go to Israel with the program and try to save some lives in the process... but more on that presently.

Starting even from when I first heard the idea of going to Israel, I've been spending a lot of my time just thinking - about Israel, about being Jewish, about Jews, about life in general. I went over a whole lot in my head during those couple of days before I got on the plane. Some of my thoughts reached a conclusion, some didn't. A lot were personal. But there's one conclusion that I've come to believe with 100% certainty that I wouldn't mind sharing with anyone: there is no knight in shining armor for the Jewish people. If Israel and other Jews mean something at all to the Jews, then we should all understand that if we and Israel are going to be saved, it's up to us and only us. That is, to other Jews. Yeah, it might not seem like such a profound thought, but at the time it was a big eye-opener for me. The time I've spent here in Israel has only increased my certainty in that belief.

Here in Israel; kind of strange to be writing those words, but it's true... I've already been here for 3 weeks. A lot of the guys who were with us in the gym, including our instructor, are now here at various sensitive Jewish towns in the Samarian hills, mostly. The training continues here also, only now it's in conjunction with the IDF. We volunteers help fill the manpower gaps in guard duty; some go through the canine handler course.

All the training is firmly grounded in reality from the very beginning, necessarily. The first story that greeted me at night around my very first 'kumzitz' - campfire was from Jason Nimsky, one of the earliest volunteers, from Long Island. He stepped off the plane, dropped his stuff off, and almost immediately found himself in active pursuit of terrorists together with an IDF Major and a specially trained tracking dog, on the first day of his k-9 dog handler patrol course with the IBFICU. As Jason learned, life here has many surprises, and the surprise attack that Arab terrorists were plotting to commit against Kfar Tapuach, was prevented, in no small part thanks to the help of the IBFICU. That first Sunday night, after his first, strenuous day of study in Ariel college about dogs and dog handling, and after several hours in the field with the attack/tracking dogs, Jason volunteered to join the instructors for more training to improve their tracking skills. The dogs are continuously being trained to detect, prevent and track unwanted intruders into Kfar Tapuach and other towns.

At approximately 2:00 AM, the army detected suspicious movement near Tapuach, and shot "preventive fire" in the general direction to scare away the suspected terrorists. 20 minutes later, the army called in the IBFICU instructors, experts from a civilian dog handling school in Ramat Aviv who were in the midst of their training session with Jason and the dogs to help them track down the terrorists. The IBFICU trackers succeeded in leading the IDF to the exact spot that was being used by the terrorists to surveil both Tapuach and West Tapuach and discovered the food supply of the terrorists who had enough food to last for a day or two. The dogs then led the IDF commander to the house where the terrorists were hiding. When the 15 IBFICU volunteers came to their class the following day, they did not believe Jason until his exact words and story were confirmed by the local IDF commanders.

That was the first story around the kumzitz; it's since occurred to me that this, here in the IBFICU in Tapuach, is probably one of the last places one can find the authentic old-fashioned halutz Zionist 'ruach', the real pioneering spirit. This, anyway, is what is going through my head as I on my own (less eventful) first night of guard duty, staring into the clear Samarian sky. I also remember my first discussion back outside Jerusalem pizza and my arrogant jabs about a "private IDF" seem really stupid after having seen the reality of the security 'matzav' - situation. Tonight I got my own first taste of 'action' when I helped, under similar circumstances to Joseph, to track Arab invaders down before they could enter to Tapuach from the area of the Tran-Samarian Highway. These hills are strategically vital and would have been unmanned if not for me - I felt on my own skin the difference a Jew who cares can make.

About half of the volunteers are studying at the college or the yeshiva in Ariel, nearby - the IBFICU worked out something with the heads of the school so that our people can study there for free, with transferable credits, even. Many of the guys also plan to serve in the I.D.F., and most of them will do it with the IBFICU's help in Mahal (combat unit for non-citizens) and other crack units, but they'll be much better prepared for their service having served in the IBFICU. The IBFICU also gives to those who don't have family who're a long time in Israel that so-critical (for Tzahal too) 'protektzia', that intangible necessity of surviving in Israeli society.

Life's weird sometimes, where a person can end up if he just takes a chance: I'm in Israel now to fulfill this "Zionist task of the highest order" - that was how the head of the YESHA council put it in his welcoming speech on the IBFICU video recruitment promo. Yeah, the head of the whole region, 144 Jewish towns in Yesha giving us a personal welcome and expressing his gratitude!

I really feel part of something here that's bigger than any one of us - a huge mitzvah. We won't be like our grandparents who stood idly by while Hitler massacred the Jews of Europe. We won't stand by. Not after I've been home to Israel, seen what I've seen, seen how vulnerable our people are here. Not now. My grandfather graduated Brooklyn College in 1949. He was 25, with one child. He had left college in his 2d year to go fight the Nazis..... Now it's my time: I fully intend to go back to school soon, maybe in the US, maybe in Israel. Maybe I'll also serve in the IDF at some point. But for now - it's time to give of myself::

I'm a IBFICUnaire.....

JOIN US NOW!