Israel Today

By Miriam and Jeffrey Benkoe

Last summer, we told friends we were going to Israel. Very nice, they said. Visiting grandkids? No. Other relatives? No. Just touring around? No.

Nu? We’re volunteering on an Army base. Hmm. Are you kidding? Are they giving you a gun? they joked.

We participated in Volunteers for Israel (VFI), otherwise known as Sar-El.

We can say, at the outset, we enjoyed our experience immensely. We felt it was valuable, rewarding, and important – being a small cog in a big important wheel.

We both have friends who have done the program and raved about it. The comments they shared were mostly positive. We wanted to go to Israel but also do something meaningful.

The application process was lengthy, bureaucratic, and sometimes frustrating (like Israel itself), made more complicated after the program was shut down during Covid. The last step was an interview via Zoom (to try to weed out whack jobs, our interviewer said). After a few months we were finally accepted.

We asked veteran volunteers lots of questions, including what to expect and what were the must-bring items.

While you only find out what base you’re assigned to after you arrive at Ben Gurion Airport, we were allowed to make a request in advance.

Many of the veterans advised us to ask for Matzrap, which distributes medical and surgical supplies and equipment for Tzahal medics and paramedics in the field. Why Matzrap? One friend called it the Hilton of the bases – better food and thicker foam mattresses.

The base is composed of many warehouses that collect, monitor, and distribbands and wives, housed on separate floors.

Volunteers, who wear army uniforms, gather in formation after breakfast for flag-raising. One of the soldiers who were our female madrichot – Shir 21, and Sheli, 20 – took turns yelling out, in Hebrew, “At ease” and “Attention!” before the flag was raised by a different volunteer each day. We then sang “Hatikvah.” Then it was off to work in the warehouses.

ute items, including weeding out those with expired dates. The warehouses are staffed and supervised by civilians who work for the IDF.

Volunteers come from all parts of the world and include Jews and Christian.

We were assigned different tasks involving medications, surgical kits, IVs, etc.

A dormitory building houses the volunteers, with males and females, hus-

We worked from 8:30 until noon, then had lunch until 1, then resumed work until 4:00.

The base has a large dining room that serves three meals a day, with lunch being the main meal (meat, chicken, and vegetarian entrees) and a nice salad bar with lots of chopped cucumbers and tomatoes and, of course, a variety of dishes made with eggplant.

All staff and officers repeatedly expressed their gratitude to us – paying our own airfare to volunteer our time to the needs of Tzahal.

Our group of fourteen volunteers came from Czech Republic, Germany, South Africa, Slovakia, and the USA.

Our madrichot were tasked with responding to our individual needs and also planned informational and enjoyable night activities.

The work week began on Sunday and concluded on Thursday after lunch, when we were driven to the central train and bus station in Tel Aviv. We felt pride in doing the work, and we bonded as a group. We both agreed we would volunteer again, provided we are in good health, i”yH.

Sometimes, the work was tedious, but then you realized that your efforts mattered – you were helping to ensure that a combat medic had the right supplies and equipment out in the field – a cog in a very important wheel.

Miriam and Jeffrey Benkoe live in Boynton Beach, Florida, while they dream of Israel. Miriam is a master educator, currently working at several South Florida yeshivot. Jeffrey is retired after working for nearly thirty years as a journalist at Reuters.