Lt. Col. (res.) Ran Avni, commander of the reconnaissance battalion in the Alexandroni reserve brigade, sat on a plastic chair in a kindergarten in one of the communities on a ridge on the northern border. He didn't prepare a monologue, nor did he arrange chapters for himself. The words just flowed, because he felt the need to release baggage that had accumulated since he separated from his wife and children on the morning of October 7.
"This is the most challenging period I've ever had in the army," said Avni, 39. "Which battalion commander did 80 days of reserve duty in a row and still doesn't see the end? But it is also immense satisfaction and power. My fighters move me every day. In every conversation with them, I feel like crying. When I took office, my wife came to the ceremony, and the whole battalion sat in the gallery. I said, 'See them? These are the best in the country. Take one by one, the most principled, the most dedicated.' I say 'the best' to you, too. The state needs to take this team, celebrate it, support it, and care for it and incentivize it. Students, self-employed, salaried employees, family owners - everyone who is here. The person who bears the burden of the reserve army should be Etrog, because in recent years we have become quite confused - 'maybe we don't need to, maybe we will reduce.' When you went on reserve duty, they would say, 'What is it for? How much do you do?' I hope that when we finish the mission, people won't ask, because they will understand that without the reserves, the army would not have moved a meter forward and the country would have fallen."
And isn't it hard for you?
"It's not easy, but people understand the enormous responsibility this generation has on their shoulders. Our grandparents, who founded the state, fought in '48, our fathers went to battle on Yom Kippur, and now it's our turn. I say this to the soldiers in every conversation, and they are here because they want to be here."
Lt. Col. Avni's reconnaissance battalion didn't even need Order 8 to assemble on 7 October. As soon as he heard in the morning about Hamas' surprise attack in the south, Avni called the battalion commanders and asked them to jump their soldiers. Their sector has always been the north, and he knew that if Hamas was running amok in the south, there was a chance Hezbollah would not lag behind.
, Photo: Afsrat Eshel
Avni: "We were that weekend in the settlement of Circles, near Netivot. We got up at 6:30 in the morning when all the walls shook. I immediately realized that this was something out of the ordinary. I left the house knowing that there was a situation in which I would encounter terrorists along the way. I didn't have any weapons, I flanked and said to myself, 'I have to go to the north, because Hezbollah might have similar ideas. You have to stabilize a defensive line there as soon as possible, hold it tight and kill anyone who tries to get close.' A reserve battalion commander lives in the state of mind of tomorrow's war, and from the moment I took office, a year ago, I did everything I could to prepare the battalion. In every encounter I told the fighters, 'Take advantage of every second of the training, because tomorrow morning we are fighting and we should come prepared.'"
The reconnaissance battalion is composed of veterans of the Golani Patrol. It has guys who have just been released and other 50-year-old volunteers. "There is no wise person with experience," Battalion Commander Avni laughs, "There are 50-year-olds here who don't see with their eyes the 25-year-olds in their physical fitness. It's all about who the person is and what his abilities are, so age doesn't bother me because the spirit will determine if we win, and the veteran guys bring a lot of spirit with them. When a young fighter comes and sees 45-year-olds fighting, what can he say? He has someone to learn from. That's the beauty of the reserve world that doesn't exist anywhere else."
When you talk about 50-year-olds, you look at Hanan Orbach from Kibbutz Beit Rimon in the Lower Galilee, a talented mountaineer. In the long reserves, he is the one who energizes the guys in the MDS, makes them keep in high shape.
"I signed up to volunteer until 2100 with an option to extend," Auerbach laughs, fully equipped, ready for combat action. "Doing reserve duty in the unit is a privilege, no matter what age. You can't force a person to take a heavy bag on his back and walk all nights in the thicket, so whoever volunteers does so by choice. Physically I'm the strongest in the team. It's easy for me here."
Go beyond what is necessary
The veterans of the Alexandroni Battalion were placed together in Team 1 in order to leave them as a right-hand marker for responsibility, seniority, and experience. There was 41-year-old Hemi Rotenberg from Kiryat Tivon, a PhD from the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion, who returned to service after completing his postdoc at the University of Chicago. Ariel Marmor, 41, director of a community center who lives in Havat Yair in Samaria, and Asher Kopetz, 42, from Shlomit near Gaza, a physiotherapist by profession.
All three enlisted in March 2002 in the Golani unit. "We start to sound old when we say that this is our second war in the reserves," Rotenberg sighs, referring to the Second Lebanon War.
"That's the magic of the team – that we all come in pure form and have known each other for many years, and it's not easy to be together so intensively, for about 80 days," says Marmur. "This is really a family where each of us knows what the other is good at and what food he likes and what the difficulties are at home and know the wife and children, especially when we have been running together for many years. For example, we were never disciplined. Anyone who wanted to leave could even at the age of 24 if it didn't suit him. When power is social, it is much more significant. There are zero arguments here, and if the Chief Inspector General asks you to return at a certain time from vacation, it is probably a precedent for a friend to leave on time. There is a rare paragon and mutual responsibility here."
But why volunteer? You've done yours.
Rotenberg: "There are several levels to this. You can talk about Zionism and that service is important and necessary, but in the end this family is what keeps people in reserve. We are here for each other, supporting when it is difficult, and this country was founded because of people who went above and beyond what was necessary. As long as we're built for the mission and have the capability, we'll be here."
Kopetz, who comes from the Gaza envelope, is a member of the alert squad of the Shlomit community community, which is located not far from Kibbutz Kerem Shalom. On the morning of October 7, he fought with his friends who had gone to help the neighboring moshav of Pri Gan, which was under attack by Hamas terrorists. His fellow villagers Aviad Cohen, Reuven Shishportish, Bechor Sweid and Uriel Bibi were killed that day.
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"During the fighting, every glance I gave at the road, bullets flew near my head," he says, "It was scary, but it's something that has to be dealt with. When you're with the people you know and in the situations you've practiced, it makes everything easier and more mechanical. But now there are days when I think more about what I went through. It hit me on the last exit home, if you can call that the hotel we're evacuating to. I went back to my family, and the wives of my friends who were killed, the widows, were left alone."
I asked if he hadn't thought, as a father of eight, about staying home. "This is a war," he stressed. "I know we don't just get hired. In the rounds that took place in the south – Cast Lead, Protective Edge – they left us aside, because operatively we belong to the north, so as soon as you read you understand that there is a need. Everyone is doing their job."
From ambush to work
The three veterans sitting across from me have families they've barely seen since the war began. Both my father-in-law and Ariel are fathers of four, and Ariel said that when he returned home, his son asked how long he had come to visit. "We're a bit of a guest at home, but it makes sense because at the end of life goes on," he admitted.
My bread was no less hard. His son Amit had a bar mitzvah, and his friends remembered how they reassured him in mid-October that there was another month for the event and that they would probably be released by then. But even today they still run around in uniform.
"I came to the event like a guest," Rotenberg manages to smile. "It was my wife who made the preparations, and it was hard for me. Not because of the technical preparations, which I wasn't upset about, but mainly because the child starts putting on tefillin and I wasn't there to teach him or go over the haftarah with him. In the end, a friend from Tivon taught for me. Amit understood the situation and said, 'Dad, I'm proud of you,' but he was nervous that I might not make it, and indeed until the last moment I wasn't sure either. In the end it was exciting, because the family performed in an almost full ensemble, the surrounding community joined. We felt like everyone needed a normal event to clear their heads."
Photo: Efrat Eshel
Family is a sensitive point. The distance from home and from spouses. The wife of their commander had already set up a podcast during their ongoing service, 'Queen Patrol,' which talks about life on the home front, and when they went down for a short training session in the middle, they decided to have a team night at my father-in-law's house and invited the women to it. It felt almost like regular service to them.
"I used to joke that my wife was a team commander," he smiles. "She has eight children, she is the interior minister, the foreign minister. I recently came to the conclusion that she is more than a "mouthpiece, managing to lead a personal life alongside a job. My wife is a social worker at the Eshkol Regional Council, so now she sometimes boards a morning flight at Ben Gurion Airport, lands in Eilat, goes between the evacuees' hotels and returns late in the evening to the children."
The battalion commander, Lt. Col. Avni, agrees with his friend. "My wife is a true lioness, proud of her that it's a waste of time. She's been alone for 80 days. Of course, she dreams of the day when we will return to our family's routine, get up in the morning and send the children to kindergarten together. My dream is to shower the kids before bed, but we both understand the magnitude of the hour."
Avni, who joined the battalion as a commander in 2009, does not stop serving in the reserves. Last year, together with battalion commanders' training courses, he spent 130 days in reserve, and this year the number is almost similar. In August, he began working as director of the security division at the Ministry of Labor, but hardly had time to knock a ticket. I believe that at work they understand and are proud of the fact that they have a division manager who is at the forefront and represents the office somewhere, and still it's not easy. But there are great challenges for the country, and now whether to be at work, or to command a reserve battalion in combat, then apparently the answer is clear."
It's probably hard for your soldiers too.
"We try to help and worry with the Tax Authority and the National Insurance Institute, and everyone comes with his own problems. I sent a truck to transfer an apartment to an underprivileged fighter. There's a soldier in financial distress, so we raised 30,15 shekels within two days and put them in our bank accounts. I have <> soldiers who came from all over the world, and some of them had nowhere to sleep. We contacted a hotel chain, and now every time a soldier leaves, a room is waiting for him in Tel Aviv on the beach."
Kopetz says that in the health plan where he works as a physiotherapist, they have found a replacement for him in the meantime. According to Dr. Rotenberg, he manages to juggle the army with work, while Marmur, who runs a community center, initially tried to combine some work, but realized that it was difficult to manage remotely.
Marmur: "If there is a public that finds it difficult, it is the independents. We have some on staff that even when they come back from an ambush in the middle of the night they go in by email or call. Very tough. They are the real heroes, because it is harder for them to survive. An employee knows that his salary is guaranteed, while the self-employed knows that if he doesn't push the business, he won't have a job."
In Praise of Fear
These are people who have been living together for many years and each of them comes from a different background. In a society that has embarked on a divided war, they know how to skip the difficulties and live in the same room. "We have left, right, settlers, gay, straight Tel Avivians, and everyone lives in harmony, zero ego," says Battalion Commander Avni. "It's a nature reserve, because when there's an enemy, everything is simpler. We don't ask questions, we don't deal with nonsense or politics, and everyone here has their own opinion."
"There is an advantage for someone who does reserve duty," Marmor adds, "He knows Israeli society in all its diversity. There is no issue that hasn't been discussed here – from the legal reform and how to flatten Gaza and whether we should wear a headscarf after the wedding, and like everywhere, in the end you understand that we have to live together. An argument is good, it shows that there is no indifference."
So the split is artificial?
"Unfortunately not, but the war reminded us that many times much more is made of the schism than it is. No one is eager to return to the situation we were in before, but from here until civil war there is a long way to go, and we will not get there either. Those who are in the reserves see that it is possible to live with conflict and that's okay, and on the day of the order, everyone will jump."
A week before we visited the village, one of the company's soldiers was seriously injured by a Hezbollah drone there, killing 53-year-old armored fighter Yehezkel Azaria. During our entire stay, the shelling did not stop. "Every day here is a day of battle," said Maj. (res.) Hillel Leviper, commander of the Alexandroni Platoon. "I know stories like this from my father-in-law who fought in the War of Attrition, and now every day I shoot with tanks and with a fire complex. In the end, our mission is to defend the northern border and make sure that there are no infiltrations and that the sector is quiet. On October 7, when we signed equipment, I told my soldiers, 'When I enlisted 20 years ago, I didn't wait for this day and I didn't want to fight, but if anything, then be at the front and defend.'"
One of their jobs, as experienced soldiers, is to lift up the young people. For example, like after their comrade's injury. "The fear is much stronger now that we're parents," Rotenberg explains. "If I compare it to the thoughts and fear I had during the Second Lebanon War, then it is clear that now the consequences are much more significant. On the other hand, we are the masters of repression, so you try to put that aside a little bit. Not too much, because in the end the fear keeps you alive. Makes you react and be alert."
Marmur is considered in the team to be an expert at eliminating fears with laughter. "What helps are black and cynical jokes, and there's no shortage here," he smiles. "There's no one that doesn't cross your mind, but fear usually makes you sharper. During the Second Lebanon War I was a 24-year-old boy, without work or before school. I was more thrown in the world, now it's much easier for me to connect to the mission."
The war with Hezbollah is on the agenda all the time, but after almost three months will these people have the strength to enter battle against a harsh and cruel enemy?
Avni: "I keep telling the fighters that without our mission and the defensive battle we are waging, in the south they would not have been able to maneuver. Being in a prolonged defensive battle is much more challenging than an offense, because in other characteristics, the burnout is different. In my opinion, we must go on the offensive and destroy and remove the threat from the northern border for the next hundred years. What will be decided? Ketonic."
For 50-year-old Hanan Orbach, too, the answer is clear. "I'm waiting for the maneuver. There is no other choice for people to come back here to live safely. If we don't change reality, it will be a multi-victim miss, until next time – and there will be the next time, because we live in the jungle. We are all united in the opinion that we must respond as strongly as possible and finish the job, otherwise we will return home feeling missed."
They don't make people like you anymore.
"Even the pioneers who built the country were few, and usually the few lead the many, and it is a great privilege to be among the tigers here. Even if we are not appreciated, we know what we are worth, and I don't expect to be applauded. That's not why I'm here."
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