Yehuda Reich carries on his shoulder not only the brown beret, but also an unconventional life story.
Rich.
"Burnt Golanchik"
Photography:
IDF spokesperson
"I am happy with the choices I made," declares Yehuda Reich (24), a Golani patrol fighter, a former ultra-Orthodox, divorced and the father of a five-year-old boy, who will begin his new role as commander in a two-week course in about two weeks
.
I paid a high price and ate straw in quantities, but I learned to overcome everything.
I managed to get from the guard farm to the Golani patrol and my hand is still outstretched.
I'm happy".
Judah's story is unusual, in part because of the tremendous change that has taken place in it.
He was a classic ultra-Orthodox, a member of the famous Sanz Hasidism, who married at a young age and gave birth to a child, and became a "strictly" secularist, as he defines it, and a poisoned Golanchik who dreams of an officers' course.
"I grew up in a classic Hasidic home, a serious home with a Rosh Yeshiva father and seven other brothers and sisters," he says.
"The truth is that my childhood was a little harder than my siblings experienced because I had difficulty reading and writing - I had an eye problem that no one could diagnose. I was tagged as a problematic and poor child who knows nothing of his life, and that kept me away.
After a few years, however, an ophthalmologist managed to fit little Judah with special glasses and this put him back in the groove.
"I started studying in a small yeshiva (parallel to high school - HG) and completed the material, but after a year I felt I did not succeed there and so I moved to my father's yeshiva.
"Three months later, I left because I did not get along with him and moved on to a third session, where I studied until the age of 19."
"I was not one of the outstanding students," he admits.
"I used to smoke, watch movies and be a basketball fan, but everything was secret. Every now and then they would catch me and throw me out of the yeshiva, but since my father is a strong person in the yeshiva, they brought me back every time."
Haredi only outwardly
Because Judah was problematic, his father came up with an original idea: if he could not be in the yeshiva, he would get married.
"From the age of 16 I hung out with the big guys, who couldn't find a match, and at the age of 19 Dad decided I should get married."
The matchmaking started and Yehuda met who would be his future wife.
Two meetings were held between the two, each lasting three hours, in which "I said what they expected me to say, about the way I want to educate the children and how I see my Shabbat table, but I did not really believe what I said."
In a relatively short time the two got married.
"I started working in a supermarket and felt independence I had never experienced, that I could do anything I wanted. "My wife soon saw that she had received a cat in a sack - she is devoutly religious, says Psalms on Shabbat, and her husband does not get up for prayer."
The two tried to lead a routine of life but to no avail.
While his wife was in advanced pregnancy they distanced themselves from each other: "I would come back at ten at night and we would not meet."
By the time his son was born he already had an almost completely secular appearance, and a year later the couple decided to unpack the package.
"We divorced nicely, quietly, we hid everything from our parents. Only then did we tell them."
He was then 22 years old and tired of the ultra-Orthodox world.
"No one will tell me what to do - not the Rebbe or the congregation."
"I did not understand what I was doing there"
After the divorce, there was a rift between Judah and his family, as his father was afraid of influencing his younger brothers.
"For a while I wandered from place to place homeless, sleeping here and there and getting along somehow."
It was a difficult time for Judah.
He connected with former ultra-Orthodox who dealt with hard drugs and girls.
He said, "I knew the bad side of Tel Aviv and it did not suit me."
Yehuda, who wanted to get out of the situation he was in, arrived at the house for lone soldiers and met a social worker who urged him to enlist and thus recover.
The problem was that at the age of 18, in order to allow him an exemption, his family members presented him as a lunatic, which created bureaucratic problems with the IDF. "The more I knew the fighters, the more I wanted to enlist.
"I watched videos of a General Staff patrol, of special units, but it took almost a year until I was able to convince the army to enlist. In the BKOM, they thought I was at least sick of Abarbanel."
When he enlisted, he was initially sent to the Hashomer Farm base, where unmotivated soldiers and soldiers with problematic backgrounds arrive.
"I was one of the only ones who got up in the morning at the base, I did not understand what I was doing there, and after six months I arrived in Golani."
Yehuda was offered to serve in the Golani Regiment but it was made clear to him that there was a price to pay.
As a divorcee and father of a child he will be forced to reduce visits and see his child in the few exits a fighter receives in training.
Judah agreed.
"I wanted to meet the child but I had to reduce the meetings because of the nature of the service. There was no choice, I had to give up. You can not eat the cake and leave it intact. It was a mental track that lasted a year and two months, and from there I took a course.
In two weeks, Yehuda will begin his new role as a "guided" commander of fighters in a cadet course at the infantry school.
With his son, who will be celebrating his fifth birthday this week, he talks mostly on Zoom and on the phone.
"He wants to see me more, but I explain to him that right now it's challenging."
"I'm happy at Golani, I love what I do. Golani is the most amazing thing I could ask for. I did not know at all what Golani was as a child, but within months I became a burnt Golanchik who was proud to walk with a tree on his shoulder. ".
Despite the many difficulties he has experienced within ultra-Orthodox society, Yehuda is not angry with his family and members of his community.
"I have an amazing family, but a child who makes such a change is a difficult thing to digest. I understand my father, who said I could not come home, but I chose to go the other way. There are things I still do - hear chassidic music, occasionally put on tefillin. "I miss the community, the people I grew up with. I do not hate them and love them even though I came out in question. Even today if I can have Shabbat dinner with the ultra-Orthodox I will come, only it will be with a car."