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"Every activist in the organization once received a phone call from a lone soldier who said 'I'm hungry, can you help?'"
Oz Cohen leads a meal team in a program that helps lone soldiers without a family background. In the special fundraising broadcast, he explained the difficulties and importance of helping those young people.
Next to him, Yosef Friedman, a discharged soldier with no family background, told how the association accompanied him in the stressful release process
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The Center for Lone Soldiers
In collaboration with the Michael Levin Center for Lone Soldiers
Sunday, 27 December 2020, 11:06
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In the video: Oz Cohen from the Center for Assistance to Lone Soldiers and Yosef Friedman, a discharged soldier (Walla! NEWS Studio)
No lone soldier is left.
The donations of the Center for Lone Soldiers without a Family Backyard came in and helped,
saying that "the army is marching on its stomach," but what do lone soldiers do when they are not in uniform or in the years after liberation?
Oz Cohen, a member of the advisory committee for lone soldiers without a family backing at the Michael Levin Center for Assistance to Lone Soldiers and leading a team of meals at the association in the central area, came to the association's special transmitter at the Walla!
NEWS and explained: "The activity we are engaged in is the basis, because without food it is impossible to exist. At the first Friday meal I had at the association I discovered that in addition to food hunger, lone soldiers also hunger for community and family, to be together. So we address these two needs. The corona We distributed quantities of home-cooked food and an average of 150 food packages and 400 product purchase notes each week.
Oz testifies that the corona has indeed made the reality of lone soldiers even more complex and thousands of them need help today for a simple reason: "Many are embedded in rear positions Work during service.
But because of the corona some of them now have no job and the vacations from the army they spend at home.
Expenditures remain, but money does not go in and the need for food and related products increases.
In addition, we could once turn to help different communities like schools and authorities, but because of the situation, they can not make us household things and we have to purchase the products ourselves when it is not possible to do this collection.
"" Everyone active in the association has this dubious experience of a soldier phone Who says to him 'I'm hungry, can you help me?' "Oz adds." Unlike our children, these young people do not have the father and mother's fridge which is always full, so the support is less critical when the soldiers are in the army because there they have food and a bed.
Support is especially important when they are at home. "
Hunger and loneliness mainly affect when you go home (screenshot)
Yosef Friedman, 23, who had been discharged from the IDF for about a year, sat next to Oz. He grew up in an ultra-Orthodox family in the Jerusalem area, until at the age of 18 he left the yeshiva and came out of the closet: "It was not an easy process.
I enlisted because it was the best option to escape from home.
And a
year before his release from the IDF, he began to feel anxious and stressed: "I knew I would have to rent an apartment and start working, so I stepped down as a fighter and moved to an open base. So, through a friend, I also knew the association for the first time. At first I did not feel comfortable coming to people I did not know and asking for help. "
What changed the situation?
"My father passed away and I had to return to the settlement for Shabbat Shiva. My childhood friends were no longer in contact with me and my friends from the army were a little afraid to come to an ultra-Orthodox settlement. Suddenly I got a call from people who said they were on their way to comfort me. "It stunned me and after that I already felt comfortable."
As the release got even closer, Joseph experienced an anxiety attack and collapsed at the base.
He turned to the veterans' coordinator at the association, Avi: "He sat down with me and explained everything to me. He helped me fill out forms and get into school. He was like a father, leading me hand in hand in the liberation process."
No lone soldier is left.
For the donations of the center for lone soldiers without a family background, go in and help
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