Maccabiah Youth Enlist in IDF for a Day

Gil Ronen Maccabiah Youth in IDF for a Day

The Hebrew military cry of attention -- hakshev -- has recently been reverberating in myriad accents through the IDF's Juara base, where hundreds of young Jewish athletes who came to Israel to participate in the 18th Maccabiah Games have also been getting a closer look at the IDF. Every day over the past two weeks, youths from a different national delegation have been coming to the IDF Youth Battalions (Gadna) camp at Juara, near Haifa, to experience what Maccabiah organizers call “Army Day.”IDF magazine Bamachaneh reported that the youths experienced something akin to a very short basic training, with the purpose of encouraging them to consider enlistment to the IDF.

A people's army

“In anticipation of the Maccabiah youth’s arrival we prepared a special one-day shortened military experience program,” explained Captain Saleh Halabi, Deputy Commander of Juara Base. “The young athletes were issued uniforms, received lessons on discipline, weapons and [the concept o a people’s army, and also gained some real on-the-ground experience, field training and more.”

“This is another necessary taste of the Israeli experience and way of life,” said Yaron Viner, Deputy Director of the Maccabiah Village at Shefayim, who is accompanying the young U.S. Maccabiah team in Israel. “Most of the young athletes who came here during this period had never seen an Israeli soldier except through a television screen,” he explained, “and now they have gotten to meet real soldiers and even feel like soldiers themselves for one day.”



“Contact with Jewish Diaspora youth is especially important to us,” Winer told Bamachaneh. The athletes were very excited by their entire experience in Israel over the past two weeks, and this was especially true of the Army Day, he said. “We hope to see positive results from our unstated desire that the visit to Israel and the taste of the military will influence the youths to volunteer to the IDF.”

Happiness is a Jewish gun

“It feels strange to think that if I were living in Israel I would be enlisting about now,” mused Jeff Safanovich, an 18-year-old soccer player from California. “Military discipline is hard to get used to, but I’m happy I did it,” he said.

Yoni Sher, who left Israel for New York at the age of seven, is playing basketball in the Maccabiah eight years later. “Now I am starting to understand what it means to be a soldier and I would even be happy to undergo a longer military experience,” she said. “I hope that all Jews in the Diaspora get to feel what it’s like to be a soldier, even if it’s only for a day.”