Defending Our Defenders

The Fellowship  |  April 18, 2018

The brave men and women of the IDF who serve and protect Israel and her people face many challenges, challenges such as poverty and loneliness. The Jerusalem Post’s Rachel Cohen writes about how The Fellowship and our faithful friends are helping the IDF’s needy soldiers, who mirror both Israel’s vast potential and her great challenges:

With poverty on the rise in Israel, some of those who serve in our nation’s defense forces must also contend with how they or their families will pay the bills, or even where their next meal will come from.

But the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (“the Fellowship”) is working hard to better the lives of some 18,000 of Israel’s most impoverished soldiers and lone soldiers (those who serve without any immediate family in Israel), so they won’t be faced with such hardships…

Fellowship global executive vice president Yael Eckstein told The Jerusalem Post that Israel’s largest charitable organization is also the largest provider of aid and basic needs to poor and lone soldiers in Israel.

“Thanks to the generous support of our Christian friends around the world, we are seeing a profound impact on Israeli society,” Eckstein said. Further, “There are no strings attached, whether the funds help our soldiers or our poorest Holocaust survivors,” she added.

Eckstein believes Israel’s army underscores Israel’s huge potential.

“The army is the best reflection of our society, it shows us our nation’s strongest and also most challenging aspects,” she said.

“You have the youth given the most opportunity, serving alongside soldiers who have come from poverty stricken homes in difficult neighborhoods, given little opportunity.

“The army offers the possibility of leveling the playing field and giving all Israeli youth the opportunity to succeed – if we help them meet their basic needs…”