Why IDF’s Immigrant Lone Soldiers Are on the Brink of Suicide

Straight from the donkey’s mouth (courtesy of Archive.org):

Before I left America, my boss told me, you must start a blog for the younger girls of the community. Their camp counselor, a soldier in the IDF — you’ll be such a role model!

I was 17, bags packed for Israel, my homeland, on my way to join the Israel Defense Forces — an Israeli-born, American-raised idealist with a vision of reclaiming her Israeli identity while rocking a uniform and an M16. I was beyond thrilled.

My aliyah experience itself was meaningful, and very positive. It showed me that I was right about how much I loved this crazy country, and although a language and culture gap were always present, they were the last things on my mind as I traveled and learned in Israel for my first year.

August 17th, 2015, my draft date, finally came, and I was ready for whatever was coming. I generally describe myself as someone who likes to hit the ground running. The commanders can yell, they can make us run all day and night, I will train and I will fight and I will prove myself. Of course, what I didn’t know was that I was heading to 02 training (noncombatant) for all of three weeks on an Air Force base next to Eilat, with a pool and a gym; I didn’t know that the real challenge there would be not getting sun-burnt on the walk to the cafeteria. So I played soldier, I stood at attention, shot a few rounds under careful supervision, and got home in time for supper. My post basic-training, specialization course was a similar experience. After a total of three months of training, I was ready to finally prove myself as a soldier; I was ready to be the person I had told everyone in America that I was going to be.

The job I was assigned to was in the chamal, the operations room, of that same Air Force base I trained at. On paper, the job is to run the ground defense of the base; from an underground bunker we were to be the eyes and ears of the entire base, the guard posts, the fences, etc. In reality, the job is to sit on a broken rolly-chair in the bunker for hours at a time, watch the blank cameras and deal with the guard duty soldiers’ complaints. I was let down. I felt like I could do so much more, and I didn’t understand why the army didn’t want me to. I moved here for this? I asked myself, heartbroken.

So I decided I would prove myself anyway. I worked very hard in that tiny chamal, with twelve hours shifts — either all day or all night — I learned everything there was to learn. I memorized phone numbers, I reread orders, I watched the cameras closely, and I slowly became an achmashit, the one in charge in my shifts. It was the fastest promotion my commanders have ever given, they told me. Simultaneously, I put in a request to join the officers course, a prestigious six month training with a rigorous testing process that gives you the rank of a commander and the start to an army career. I didn’t have the scores, but I put in an appeal. I would prove myself yet.

The next six months were the hardest of my life. It is the part of the aliyah story that you didn’t read on Ynet and didn’t see on Facebook. It is not the part my boss from Atlanta wanted me to share. Nonetheless, but with some hesitation, I am sharing it now.

As an American Zionist, I thought that joining the army was an answer, like volunteering or giving charity, to a problem that I felt was mine. Yet I didn’t see it as just giving some money to charity — I saw it as giving the final $100 that builds the shelter. I was sure that this was step one to integrating into Israeli society and more importantly proving myself useful. Well, integrate I did, but only in the sense that I finally learned what all Israelis’ thick skin was made of- armor.

Every day in the army felt like a day wasted. There was next to nothing to do in my shifts — I stared and waited for something to happen, for hours and hours. I felt useless. I kept testing for the officers course. I passed, I failed, I appealed, I passed, I failed, I appealed — for months. I put in a request for a new job. I found my dream job, I even got an interview, and even more incredibly, the commander there loved me. Yet by then I had been in the army for almost a year and they didn’t want to take the time to train me — the army is a bureaucratic system after all. Every day in the army took so much out of me; I truly felt broken. With every rejection, my commander reminded me, it’s nothing personal, you’re just a part of the system.

Nothing personal is exactly what I then became. I was losing myself. I felt like Ariel when she traded away her voice for legs. The army sat me in front of a screen, gave me some eyes, took away my heart and said, Honey, you don’t need that where you’re going. It was like growing up thinking I was a lion, and waking up one day and seeing in the mirror nothing more than a street cat.

I became depressed. I cried, more than I ever have. I couldn’t sleep more than a few hours in a row. I stopped eating. Food nauseated me. I could go a week eating just one box of cookies. I fought with my family, I canceled plans with my friends. I kept fighting to advance, putting in appeals, meeting with high ranking officers to show them who I am, but in the back of my head I began to ask myself, who am I? Why would I deserve this?

I love Israel. I love being Israeli. You wouldn’t believe how Israeli I’ve become over the past years, running a tight ship in my bunker. I know that Israel needs the IDF, and I know that being a part of it is important in the big picture. But I wasn’t ready for this. I was a naive immigrant, and I was only invested in my own story. The army is a system, and with all its accomplishments, it has its flaws. Something I learned, together with my fellow soldiers who suffered from boredom and disappointment with me, is that the army doesn’t need you specifically. It needs a body to fill a space. They don’t know you, and they don’t want to know you. This all sounds fine and reasonable from the outside — and of course it is — but going through that process, the process of separating yourself, the you that thinks and cares and wants, from the you that obeys and does and works, can be heartbreaking. When you put an 18-year-old with dreams and passions in a small box and tell them this is their world, it can break them. My motivation was my vulnerability, and the army made a big crack.

I was able to get out of my depressive state. I was able to find myself outside of just being a cog in the machine. I’m a relatively happy soldier now, who hates her job, just like every other soldier, but does it anyways, just like every other soldier, and goes to the pool and the gym with her friends on breaks. I have had my share of important shifts, where I’ve done a great deal, as well as shifts so boring I started counting speckles on the ceiling tiles. I have set my naïveté aside and learned that the biggest challenge – the one nobody prepares you for – of being in the army is staying out of it, mentally and emotionally.

So, this isn’t the blog post of a young American making it great in the army. Nor is it meant to deter young idealists from enlisting in the IDF. It is a soldier wanting to raise awareness, to bring another perspective to the conversation, a perspective people are less comfortable talking about. It is a soldier wanting to open a dialogue about the sacrifices we make to serve, the ones you don’t hear about at ceremonies. Health is not only physical, it is also mental and emotional, and being a soldier in the army takes a great toll. Unfortunately, it comes without a warning. We as a culture – immigrants more so than Israelis, but Israelis as well – whitewash the army and the meaning of service and bring young soldiers into the harsh system unprepared.

So, to my American friends posting their aliyah pictures on Facebook, to each and every one of you, I am proud of you. I wish you a meaningful, safe and healthy service. Remember though, that even if it isn’t, you are not your uniform.

To the American Jewish community, the black-and-white Zionist rhetoric won’t make the fall any easier when you get here.

To my fellow Israeli immigrants, we came here on a mission, but we need not give ourselves up for it.

To my past self, on August 17th, 2015, wear lots of sunscreen, pack socks, and don’t let them take away your laugh.

To my future self, on August 17th, 2017, when you get home, don’t forget to unpack your strength, your confidence, and your smile. They’ve been at the bottom of the bag for a long time, but it’s time to take them out. They could use the sunshine.

Last week a commander from Tel Aviv HQ called me to tell me I was accepted to officer training. It’s been over ten months since I first applied. I politely declined the offer. The army isn’t the only thing one can do to be active in the country.

It is time to take off our rose-colored lenses. The pink is much more beautiful if you can also see the gray.

Source: here.

Coronavirus Madness Getting You Down? ‘Be the Change’!

Email received from a friend:

Chizuk Please

Hey, whoever you are,
I’m not falling apart, so don’t freak out. But I do feel that the outer layers of the Jewish people are being burned off and getting exposed for what they are, for what I always knew they were, and have until now felt uncomfortable for being disgusted by them. On the one hand, it’s vindicating. But it’s still, I admit, much more painful and just so sad, than any vindication could satisfy.
This hurts, even though I knew I was right this whole time.
Now as more and more “Rabbis” support segregation against the “unvaxxed” they are all taking off the masks they’ve been wearing this whole time and revealing I was right about them all. But I still want to cry.
Who the hell is even out there who is standing up for what’s right? Is there ANYONE? Who is going to be left after all this disgustingness? This is pure, concentrated, totally insane sinas chinam. It’s like we’re being purged. In a good and bad way. I can’t make out what’s happening. It’s horrible and beautiful all at the same time and I’m spinning in circles.
I feel like I’m in a centrifuge and I just have to hold on as tight as I can.
Just hold on.

My dear ______, you wrote: “whoever you are”.

Are there any rebeim you know of that are still sane? Chananya Weissman is on our side but any poskim out there who understand what is going on here?

Don’t think of others; be constructive. All Jews must become independent Torah scholars, if possible. And don’t jump to conclusions, either.

Start here.
By the way, see what I posted the other day: 

My Response to Two Corona-Vaccine ‘Halachic Rulings’

The end.
P. S., Even if one’s opinion is one way, that doesn’t necessarily mean a halachic decisor shouldn’t be diplomatic, so Jews aren’t seen as pathogens, “Mishum Eivah”, especially in Chutz La’aretz.

הכל לפי הענין, היינו לפי מה שמשער כעסן ופחזותן. ודע דהיום כשבאו מהאומות שחוץ לגבולינו לשלול שלל ולבוז בז בודאי מחויבים אנו לצאת בכלי זיין אפילו על עסקי ממון וכדינא דמלכותא וכן מבואר ברוקח ואגודה דהיכא דאיכא חשש שמא יכעסו יושבי הארץ עלינו מחללין עי”ש.

Lenin REALLY Understood What the State Is…

From Oxford Essential Quotations:

Lenin (1870–1924), Russian revolutionary

  1. No, Democracy is not identical with majority rule. Democracy is a State which recognizes the subjection of the minority to the majority, that is, an organization for the systematic use of force by one class against the other, by one part of the population against another. State and Revolution (1919)
  2. While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State. State and Revolution (1919) ch. 5

Source: here.

Capitalists Tripping Over Each Other To Sell the Rope To Hang Capitalists

The foreword by Gary North, to “The Best Enemy Money Can Buy” By Antony C. Sutton

In December of 1979, the Soviet Union launched a lightning-fast military offensive against the backward nation of Afghanistan. It was after this invasion that President Jimmy Carter admitted publicly that it had taught him more about the intentions of the Soviets than
everything he had ever learned. Never again would he kiss the cheeks of Premier Brezhnev before the television cameras of the West. The Democrat-controlled Senate even refused to ratify his SALT II treaty. (By the way, President Reagan has been honoring its terms unofficially, and he already has ordered the destruction of several Poseidon submarines, including the U.S.S. Sam Rayburn, the dismantling of which began in November of 1985 (1), and which cost a staggering $21 million for the destruction of that one ship (2). The Nathan Hale and the Andrew Jackson are scheduled for destruction in 1986 (3). To comply with SALT II, we will have to destroy an additional 2,500 Poseidon submarine warheads. “Good faith,” American diplomatic officials argue. (“Good grief,” you may be thinking.)
The invasion of Afghanistan was a landmark shift in Soviet military tactics. Departing from half a century of slow, plodding, “smother the enemy with raw power” tactics, the Soviet military leadership adopted the lightning strike. Overnight, the Soviets had captured the Kabul airfield and had surrounded the capital city with tanks (4).
Tanks? In an overnight invasion? How did 30-ton Soviet tanks roll from the Soviet border to the interior city of Kabul in one day? What about the rugged Afghan terrain?
The answer is simple: there are two highways from the Soviet Union to Kabul, including one which is 647 miles long. Their bridges can support tanks. Do you think that Afghan peasants built these roads for yak-drawn carts? Do you think that Afghan peasants built these roads at all? No, you built them.
In 1966, reports on this huge construction project began to appear in obscure U.S. magazines. The project was completed the following year. It was part of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Soviet and U.S. engineers worked side by side, spending U.S. foreign aid money and Soviet money, to get the highways built. One strip of road, 67 miles long, north through the Salang Pass to the U.S.S.R., cost $42 million, or $643,000 per mile. John W. Millers, the leader of the United National survey team in Afghanistan, commented at the time that it was the most expensive bit of road he had ever seen. The Soviets trained and used 8,000 Afghans to build it. (5)
If there were any justice in this world of international foreign aid, the Soviet tanks should have rolled by signs that read: “U.S. Highway Tax Dollars at Work.”
Nice guys, the Soviets. They just wanted to help a technologically backward nation. Nice guys, American foreign aid officials. They also just wanted to help a technologically backward nation… the Soviet Union.
Seven Decades of Deals
The story you are about to read is true. The names have not been changed, so as not to protect the guilty.
In the mid-1970’s, the original version of this book led to the destruction of Antony Sutton’s career as a salaried academic researcher with the prestigious (and therefore, not quite ideologically tough enough) Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. That was a high price for Sutton to pay, but not nearly so high as the price you and I are going to be asked to pay because of the activities that this book describes in painstaking detail.
Lenin is supposed to have made the following observation:
“If we were to announce today that we intend to hang all capitalists tomorrow, they would trip over each other trying to sell us the rope.”
I don’t think he ever said it. However, someone who really understood Lenin, Communism, and capitalist ethics said it. This book shows how accurate an observation it is.
Antony Sutton is not about to offer the following evidence in his own academic self-defense, so I will. Perhaps the best-informed American scholar in the field of Soviet history and overall strategy is Prof. Richard Pipes of Harvard University. In 1984, his chilling book appeared, Survival Is Not Enough: Soviet Realities and America’s Future (Simon & Schuster). His book tells at least part of the story of the Soviet Union’s reliance on Western technology, including the infamous Kama River truck plant, which was built by the Pullman- Swindell company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a subsidiary of M. W. Kellogg Co. Prof. Pipes remarks that the bulk of the Soviet merchant marine, the largest in the world, was built in foreign shipyards. He even tells the story (related in greater detail in this book) of the Bryant Chucking Grinder Company of Springfield, Vermont, which sold the Soviet Union the ball-bearing machines that alone made possible the targeting mechanism of Soviet MIRV’ed ballistic missiles. And in footnote 29 on page 290, he reveals the following:
In his three-volume detailed account of Soviet purchases of Western equipment and technology . . . [Antony] Sutton comes to conclusions that are uncomfortable for many businessmen and economists. For this reason his work tends to be either dismissed out of hand as “extreme” or, more often, simply ignored.
Prof. Pipes knows how the academic game is played. The game cost Sutton his academic career. But the academic game is very small potatoes compared to the historic “game” of world conquest by the Soviet empire. We are dealing with a messianic State which intends to impose its will on every nation’ on earth — a goal which Soviet leaders have repeated constantly since they captured Russia in their nearly bloodless coup in October of 1917.
Sutton identifies the deaf mute blindmen who sell the Soviets the equipment they need for world conquest. But at least these deaf mute blindmen get something out of it: money. Not “soft currency” Soviet rubles, either; they get U.S. dollars from the Soviets, who in turn get long-term loans that are guaranteed by U.S. taxpayers. Their motivation is fairly easy to understand. But what do the academic drones get out of it? What do they get for their systematic suppression of the historical facts, and their callous treatment in book reviews of works such as Sutton’s monumental three-volume set, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development? What was in it, for example, for C. H. Feinstein of Clare College, Cambridge Unversity, who reviewed Sutton’s first volume, covering 1917-1930? He could not honestly fault Sutton’s basic scholarship, nor did he try:
… he has examined a vast amount of information, much of it previously unknown to scholars, regarding the trading contacts and contracts between the U.S.S.R and the West, notably Germany and the United States. The primary sources were the fascinating and extraordinarily detailed files of the U.S. State Department and the archives of the German Foreign Ministry, and these were supplemented by a wide-ranging and multilingual selection of books and journals.
He even wrote that “Sutton’s prodigious researches (and this is apparently only the first of three projected volumes) have provided students of Soviet economic development with a detailed survey of the way in which Western’ technology was transferred to the Soviet Union, and for this we are indebted to him.” But having admitted this — thereby preserving the surface appearance of professional integrity — Feinstein then lowered the academic boom:
Unfortunately, his attempt to go beyond this, and to assess the significance of this transfer and of the concessions policy, is unsatisfactory and overstates the extent and impact of the concessions as well as their importance for Soviet economic development …. the defects of Sutton’s approach … a similar lack of understanding… Sutton exaggerates… He further indulges his fondness for exaggeration… (6)
You get the basic thrust of the review. “Facts are fine; we are all scholars here.” But even the mildest sort of first-stage conclusions concerning the importance and significance of such facts are anathema, for the facts show that the Soviet economy should have this sign over it: “Made in the West.” Sutton’s subsequent two volumes were never reviewed in this specialized academic journal — the journal, above all other U.S. scholarly journals, in which it would have been most appropriate to include reviews of scholarly books on Soviet economic history. The information blackout had begun, and it was augmented by the publisher’s own blackout beginning in 1973, a blackout discussed in this book.
Less than three years after Feinstein’s review was published, Bryant Chucking Grinder Co. sold the Soviets the ball-bearing grinders that subsequently placed the West at the mercy of the Soviet tyrants. At last, they possessed the technology which makes possible a relatively low-risk first-strike by Soviet missiles against our missiles and “defenses.”(7) Until Bryant supplied the technology, the Soviets couldn’t build such offensive weapons, which is why they had lobbied from 1961 until 1972 to get the U.S. government’s authorization to buy the units. Within a few years after delivery, they had the missiles installed. Then they invaded Afghanistan. So much for Sutton’s “exaggerations.”
This book is not really designed to be read word for word. It is a kind of lawyer’s brief, filled with facts that none of us will remember in detail. But if the facts were not included, the book’s thesis would be too far-fetched to accept. He therefore includes pages and pages of dull, dreary details — details that lead to an inescapable conclusion: that the West has been betrayed by its major corporate leaders, with the full compliance of its national political leaders.
From this time forward, you can say in confidence to anyone: “The United States financed the economic and military development of the Soviet Union. Without this aid, financed by U.S. taxpayers, there would be no significant Soviet military threat, for there would be no Soviet economy to support the Soviet military machine, let alone sophisticated military equipment.” Should your listener scoff, you need only to hand him a copy of this book, it will stuff his mouth with footnotes.
It probably will not change the scoffer’s mind, however. Minds are seldom changed with facts, certainly not college-trained minds. Facts did not change Prof. Feinstein’s mind, after all. The book will only shut up the scoffer when in your presence. But even that is worth a lot these days.
From this day forward, you should never take seriously any State Department official (and certainly not the Secretary of State) who announces to the press that this nation is now, and has always been, engaged in a worldwide struggle against Communism and Soviet aggression. Once in a while, Secretaries of State feel pressured to give such speeches. They are nonsense. They are puffery for the folks out in middle America.
You may note for future reference my observation that Secretaries of Commerce never feel this pressure to make anti-Communist speeches. They, unlike Secretaries of State, speak directly for American corporate interests. They know where their bread is buttered, and more important, who controls the knife.
When it comes to trading with the enemy, multinational corporate leaders act in terms of the political philosophy of the legendary George  Washington Plunkett of Tammany Hall: “I seen my opportunities, and I took ’em.” Plunkett was defending “honest graft”; our modern grafters have raised the stakes considerably. They are talking about bi-partisan treason.
Footnotes:
1. Washington Times (Dec. 24, 1985).
2. Howard Phillips, Washington Dateline (Dec. 1985), p. 6.
3. Washington Post (Nov. 27, 1985).
4. Edward Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983), ch. 1.
5. “Rugged Afghan Road Jobs Fill Gaps in Trans-Asian Network,” Engineering News-Record (Nov. 3, 1966).

6. Review of Antony Sutton, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development, 1917-1930 (Stanford: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, 1965), in The Journal of Economic History, XXIX (December 1969), pp. 816-18.

7. Actually, the United States has no defenses. What we have is an arsenal of retaliatory offensive weapons aimed at Soviet cities, not at Soviet military targets. This is the infamous strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) which was implemented by former Secretary of Defense (!!!) Robert Strange McNamara. If Soviet missiles were to take out the bulk of our land-based missiles in a first strike, we would have little choice but to surrender, since our submarine-launched missiles are too weak and too inaccurate to destroy hardened Soviet missile silos, and the Soviets could threaten a second wave of missiles against our cities if we were to attempt to retaliate. On our present position of military inferiority, see Quentin Crommelin, Jr. and David S. Sullivan, Soviet Military Supremacy (Washington, D.C.: The Citizens’ Foundation, 1985). This book was a project of USC’s Defense and Strategic Studies Program.

The end.

P.S., I wrote about the ubiquity of these goings-on earlier here on the site, as well.

הרב נחום רבינוביץ זצ”ל: דברי הנביאים על מדיניות האינפלציה

על דת ופוליטיקה בישראל – הרב נחום אליעזר רבינוביץ’

י. לחשוף את המאור שבתורה

רב המשותף בין היהודים על המבדיל בינינו. אם נצליח לשוב ולחשוף את היקפה הכולל של התורה המקיפה את החיים כולם, תשוב ותתגלה אותה מורשת משותפת. לתורה יש הרבה מה
ללמד, שיש בו כדי לתרום לקידום החברה בה אנו חיים, ולתיקון הקילקולים שבה. הלא אחת משתי מטרותיה של התורה היא תיקון הגוף. ישנם לקחים בנושאים של אזרחות ומנהיגות, לקחים
בעניינים סוציאליים וכלכלה שוויונית, אשר נושאי התורה היו צריכים ללמד לכל שכבות הציבור, אך הם אינם עושים כן. אור התורה אשר מאיר על כל הבעיות הסבוכות של המדינה המודרנית, יכול למשוך אפילו את הרחוקים מן התורה והמנוכרים לה להזדהות עם מורשתנו. כך יכול כל יהודי לזכות בכבוד העצמי ובהערכה העצמית הנלווים לזהות יציבה וחזקה.

מבלי לגרוע מחשיבותה של שלימות הנפש, יש להכיר בכך שבמצב הנוכחי, התורה, בעיני יהודים רבים, אינה אלא סיסמה של מפלגות פוליטיות שוליות, אשר מנצלות אותה לאינטרסים כיתתיים צרים. הרי ישנם נושאים חשובים לאין ערוך בהם ערכי התורה היו צריכים לתרום חלקם, אך לדאבוננו קולם אינו נשמע.

דוגמה פשוטה: במשך כמה וכמה שנים נקטה הממשלה במדיניות של אינפלציה יזומה, בתפיסה שניתן, כביכול, ליצור עושר במכונות הדפוס. אך בכל שנה, בשבת שלפני ט’ באב כאשר בכל בתי הכנסיות קוראים “כספך היה לסיגים” (ישעיה א, כב) אין איש שם אל לבו שדברי הנביא מופנים אלינו. השחיתות אשר התפשטה במערכות הכלכלה כנגע סרטני, היא תוצאה ישירה של מעילה באמון, אשר באה לידי ביטוי בטעויותיה הכלכליות של הממשלה. האם יכולות המפלגות הדתיות, והאם הן מוכנות, להשמיע קולן בעניין זה ובעניינים חשובים נוספים?

המשך לקרוא את המאמר כאן…