The year is 2016, I’m 19 years old and I don’t yet grasp the magnitude or implications of the decision I am about to make. I can’t see beyond this moment, in which I’m determined to become a full-fledged member of Israeli society and contribute to the safety and well-being of those around me. I have no concept of what it means to be on my own in a foreign country, to define myself in a foreign language or to build a life for myself within a foreign culture. When I inevitably encounter the many challenges and obstacles that shape the experience of every lone soldier, I’m struck by the harsh truth that I have no idea what I’m doing.
A lone soldier is a person serving in the IDF with no parents or guardian to support them in Israel, and that year, I became one. I moved my entire life from my parents’ house in New York to a small kibbutz down south, and was drafted to the Israeli army. As the ground began to shift beneath me, I did my best to navigate a new, disorienting reality that was strictly ordered, devoid of comfort and most significantly, in a language I hardly spoke. I struggled to keep track of the long list of rights my “lone soldier” status afforded me, as I was constantly warned I could lose them if I didn’t learn to demand them.
Over the first few months of my service, I began to truly understand what it meant to be a lone soldier – for both myself and others I knew who shared the status. I quickly came to appreciate that I wasn’t nearly as alone as I could have been, because I had my older brother.
My real, flesh-and-blood older brother, Max, made aliyah four years before I did, and had served as a lone soldier himself. In true older sibling fashion, he’d walked this exact road before me, and accompanied me now to share the wisdom he’d gained along the way. He taught me to manage my Israeli bank account, introduced me to the many resources and organizations at my disposal and most importantly, provided the sort of emotional support that only an older sibling can. The sort of emotional support that empowers, that meets you exactly where you are rather than looking down on you from above, that says, “I’ve been where you are, and it’s going to be okay.”
Now, three years since I completed my service, I’m excited and honored to join an organization that endeavors to give each and every lone soldier all of the things that Max gave me. Ach Gadol, which translates literally as “big brother”, was founded 13 years ago to provide lone soldiers with proper support systems. The necessity for the project was illuminated by an article about a lone soldier who’d spent the night in a public park. At the time, the community that would become Ach Gadol consisted of a few concerned former lone soldiers, who encountered the article and began asking themselves how this could possibly have happened. After all, there were countless resources available to these soldiers – how could people still be falling between the cracks? An integral piece of what was missing, they decided, was someone who understood these soldiers’ situation completely, and could provide a meaningful outside perspective. Led by founder Daniel Aharon, the group set out to transform the experience of being a lone soldier in Israel.
What began as an idea among 16 people is today a powerful reality sustained by over 500 volunteers, and the domain of the organization is constantly expanding. In addition to the soldier mentoring program, Ach Gadol manages a range of projects and sub-organizations that work towards improving the experiences of new immigrants, specific communities of lone soldiers and former lone soldiers as they endevour to build lives and careers in Israel. Aharon describes the organization’s mission as something that extends beyond the duration of a soldier’s service. “We have an opportunity as Israeli society,” he says, “to embrace these young people who have volunteered to enlist, and make them the beating heart of our society.”
On this blog, we will tell the stories of these young people and the volunteers who work with them. Our posts will zoom in on the people and projects that make Ach Gadol the extraordinary and effective organization that it is, and explore the widely diverse community of lone soldiers participating in the mentor program. The organization was founded on the principle that connection matters, that connections have the potential to fortify and sustain us. Each connection formed within Ach Gadol is utterly unique. There’s no obvious, step-by-step approach a volunteer takes with every new soldier. Instead, each volunteer-soldier relationship is shaped by the distinct personalities within it, and is adjusted according to the individual needs of the soldier. In our posts, we will trace the common threads throughout these stories – the shared experiences and feelings that unite all lone soldiers – while emphasizing the individual world that is every soldier and every volunteer-soldier relationship. Ach Gadol has spent 13 years collecting these stories, and we can’t wait to share them with you.
Want to get involved? Help us continue to provide our soldiers with the support they need.
