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For American teens in Israel, the war brings lessons in resilience and caring
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
(JTA) — On a night where students at Yeshivat Lev HaTorah would typically be up late learning Torah, they were taking shifts volunteering at a local grocery store. Students restocked shelves for Yesh Chessed, a grocery store in Beit Shemesh facing staffing shortages amid the war in Israel. Their support allowed the store to remain open and serve Israeli families.
“The entire general vibe of all of Israel right now is, ‘If you can help, you help,’” Eli Cohen, a recent high school graduate from Atlanta, Georgia on a gap year at Lev HaTorah, said while tying tzizit garments to send to soldiers.
Participants in Israel-based gap-year programs like Lev HaTorah have joined nearly half of all Israelis in volunteering in the weeks since Hamas launched an attack killing 1,200 Israelis and causing the army to mobilize roughly 360,000 reservists. For some programs, however, adapting to the situation in Israel has not been easy.
The war in Israel forced gap-year programs, which attract high school students, recent graduates and college students from abroad for extended stays in Israel, to adjust their routines on short notice. Schools now accommodate increased student volunteerism in their schedules. Many programs are overcoming staffing shortages as faculty and staff join reserve duty or need to support their families. Schools have placed added focus on the safety and well being of their students and faculty.
Amid the crisis, some students chose to leave their programs in Israel. Masa Israel Journey, a nonprofit that oversees many gap-year programs, began the year with 5,700 fellows in Israel. Around 4,000 remain during the war, with a portion of those who initially left now returning.
And some programs suspended their activities altogether. Alexander Muss High School in Israel, a study abroad program for teens, sent its roughly 160 students back to America in order to relieve its staff members, according to JD Krebs, a school spokesperson, and not for safety concerns. “We have an entire staff and faculty made up of Israelis who are affected by the war,” Krebs told JTA. “We felt we needed to give them the time they needed to spend with their families.”
Before their homebound chartered flight on Oct. 12, Muss students launched a fundraising page, which raised over $120,000 for those impacted by the war. In addition, they made 1,600 care packages for displaced families.
Programs that remain open in Israel struggle with staffing issues as well. Several counselors at Aardvark Israel, a gap-year program that offers studies and internships in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, left for reserve duty. Emma Flanders, an Aardvark admissions coordinator, said that other staff members fill in vacancies. “We’re a very close staff and very close community,” said Flanders. “That’s our friends on the frontline. Of course, I’m going to go in, help them and help their students.”
Yeshivat Lev HaTorah in Beit Shemesh, Israel hosted a carnival for local families and children whose schools were closed amid the war. (Yeshivat Lev HaTorah)
Aardvark student Donovan Ahlquist, 18, said that many of his peers returned to America out of safety concerns. Still, he said that the students and counselors who remain have grown more connected to each other. “It’s really wonderful having people here to talk to about it,” said Ahlquist, “because we’re all going through the same… deeply traumatic event.”
By staying in Israel, Ahlquist said that he knows he is helping the country and its people in a time of need. “Without Israel, we have nothing,” he said. “Israel is our home. Israel is everything.”
Ahlquist’s original goal of personal growth for his gap year remains unchanged, even as he supports Israel through the crisis. “While I’m here, I can stay here and help out as much as I can,” said the New Orleans teen. “Then I know that I’m being useful, and I am still going to grow as a person.”
In response to the war, Aardvark has been trying to foster unity amongst its students. “A lot of what we’ve been doing is actually bringing the students together more than they might be used to,” Aardvark’s Flanders said. The gap year program now allocates time for more community-building events such as movie nights and yoga classes.
Aardvark also strives to maintain a sense of normalcy by encouraging students to continue their classes and internships, even virtually when necessary.
Some programs shifted entirely to virtual classes. Israel XP, a gap-year program at Bar-Ilan University, originally planned for its students to arrive on Oct. 10, three days after the war in Israel began. “We unfortunately had to delay the arrival of our students, but we have begun classes on Zoom,” Natalie Menaged, chief operating officer of Israel XP at Bar-Ilan University, told JTA. “We look forward to welcoming our students to Israel as soon as we can.”
Those that can continue operating in Israel use the opportunity to help Israeli communities in a time of crisis. On top of their normal classes, students at Midreshet Lindenbaum, a Jerusalem-based seminary, spend hours preparing packages for soldiers and craft kits for children who cannot attend school. Director of Programming Cheryl Burnat said that the seminary also hosted a community camp with activities for kids and a space for parents to relax over breakfast.
An Aardvark Israel student volunteering in the date farms at Kibbutz Ketura, near Eilat, where participants in the gap-year program spent a week after the initial attacks decompressing, volunteering and helping displaced families from Israeli towns near the Gaza border. (Aardvark Israel)
Lindenbaum student Jemima Schoen said that volunteering and dedicating her Torah study to Israeli soldiers helps lift her spirits and lessen her anxiety over the war. Schoen, an 18-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia, added that her presence in Israel gives her a different perspective of Israeli resilience. Unlike those in America who tend to focus on the tragedies presented in the news from afar, “here in Israel, people are really trying to move forward, help out and change things for the good,” she said.
Programs say they prioritize the security and mental well-being of their students, particularly in response to the situation in Israel. Students at Lev HaTorah now need their parents’ permission to leave the neighborhood, and the yeshiva makes an effort to keep students near shelters should a siren sound.
Staff members “have a personal investment in every single student, and the doors are always open, even in normal times,” said Ariella Mendlowitz, a spokesperson for Lev HaTorah. During the war, she said, the staff increased their availability to students.
Lev HaTorah also supports members of Lev LaChayal, its program for lone soldiers, or soldiers from abroad who often don’t have family in Israel. Yeshiva students gather and package essentials to send to former Lev HaTorah students who now serve in the Israel Defense Forces without immediate family members in the country.
The yeshiva wants its students to know that, through their initiatives, students are “staying here for a purpose,” said Mendlowitz.
Cohen was glad he decided to stay in Israel. “I can be here and I can make whatever difference that I can make, whether it’s absolutely miniscule or on a larger scale,” he said. Cohen said he no longer feels like an American visitor on a gap year but like an active contributor to Israeli society. “You never think you actually will wake up one day, at least from the American perspective, and see rockets flying through the sky,” he said. “It’s a call to action and a call to responsibility.”
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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