I have to admit that I am not the volunteering type—maybe it’s because while working full time I deluded myself into thinking that I never had time to do it, or perhaps it was because altruism and “giving back” was not in my blood. To be sure, now that I’m nearly retired, it certainly couldn’t be the former excuse. Whichever one it was, however, when the war in Israel broke out, I knew I couldn’t live with myself if all I did was write a check to the various charities and organizations. That would have been the easy way out but somehow, deep down, I knew it wouldn’t have satisfied my conscience . It would have been too “clean and easy” and under normal circumstances, I would have been somewhat okay that I did my part. But in this case, I knew that I had to act, I had to work, I had to contribute and give of myself in ways that I’ve never done before. So, along with literally thousands of others who felt the same way, I decided that I would go to Israel to help out as a volunteer in whatever capacity was needed. My altruism, though, did have some limitations, so before formalizing my decision, I told the Israeli placement director that I had just two conditions:
a. I could never again tolerate working in the children’s laundry. I did that for one miserably long day on a kibbutz in Israel way back in 1978 and I vowed that I’d never do that again, and,
b. I simply couldn’t get up at 3 AM to and head over to the chicken coup (lit only by dull blue ultraviolet light) to grab chickens by their necks and bring them to slaughter. The one morning I did that back in 1978 cured me of stepping foot on a Kibbutz ever again!!!
Half jokingly, I also mentioned my age—-ugh—almost 70, (but a very fit and energetic one, I might add), and so I asked if the work was going to be too strenuous for someone like me. Those two exceptions aside, I told her that I was up for most any challenge and with the reassurance that the work would certainly be age appropriate AND that I’d not be assigned duty in a children’s laundry nor for work in a chicken coup, I signed up, scheduled my week of service and bought the airline ticket to Israel.
We got to work right away. . Day one was lemon picking in the Negev desert—really not too far at all from Gaza. All of the migrant workers left Israel right after October 7th and the farmers were desperate for help. Fortunately, there were several volunteer groups that week and we were told that the various groups in Israel that week alone picked well over 5 tons of lemons!! I certainly did my part and hardly minded all the scratches from the lemon thorns and all the mud on the ground. By the end of the day, I had to throw away my pants and shirt—I can’t ever remember a time that I had gotten so dirty.
Day 2 was totally different. We were needed to prepare lunch for 400 soldiers near the Lebanon border — not any regular military lunch, mind you, but a full fledged barbecue. We all got into an assembly line—5 of us doing the grilling of the hamburgers, two of us putting those patties into the buns (one was yours truly!) then wrapping them up, several of us prepping the ketchup, pickles, and other condiments. All the others had the various tasks of dessert, fruit, utensils, napkins, boxing up the lunches, etc. I found myself (and several other of the baby boomers, too) constantly repeating the McDonald’s Big Mac jingle from the late 60’s: “Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles , onions, on a sesame seed bun”.
(Minus the cheese, of course!!).
The other days were filled with weeding cabbage and lettuce patches, planting basil, preparing gift boxes for children in hospitals, and separating massive amounts underwear and t-shirts for the soldiers (separating the small, medium , large and extra large sizes and re-boxing all of them).
Although our main focus was proving the manpower that the farms and labor needed, we also had the opportunity to sit down with some soldiers who had been on the front lines in Gaza as well as having meals with some survivors of the Hamas devastation. You can somewhat distant yourself from CNN and Fox and all of the media outlets knowing that whatever happened was 7,000 miles away and kind of doesn’t touch your life. Sitting next to a survivor and listening to their horrific stories is quite a different experience, one that left all of us constantly teary eyed nearly every day.
On the face of it all, I was volunteering to help out Israel; deep down, though, I was really helping myself. I knew that action on my part was necessary to break out of own self protective American shell of selfishness. Of caring only for what directly affected me here and now. I came to the realization that this first step of helping out that week was and will be just the first step of helping out more, volunteering more and of giving more of myself to the benefit to others in need.
I’m leaving for Israel on another volunteer trip in just 10 days and I’ll be there for another week——I’ll do whatever I’m asked to do (except, of course, for working in the children’s laundry or working in the chicken coup!).
