Amid an enduring soldier shortage, and as an all-out occupation of Gaza looms, the Israel Defense Forces are considering a campaign to recruit soldiers from Jewish populations living in the United States and other countries around the world.
According to Israeli Army Radio, a state media outlet, Israel may mount an effort to recruit 600 to 700 Jews a year from the diaspora, a term referring to Jews living somewhere other than Israel. At first, Israel would concentrate its effort in the United States and France, the countries with the two largest Jewish populations, at roughly 6 million and 450,000, respectively.
As of February, there were 3,500 diaspora soldiers serving in the IDF, with nearly 900 of them Americans. Israel calls such troops lone soldiers. “The majority of American lone soldiers are coming after high school, either directly after high school or after a gap year program,” said Noya Govrin, Director of the Lone Soldiers Program at Nefesh b’Nefesh, a nonprofit that encourages Americans and Canadians to “make aliyah” — that is, to move to Israel and become citizens. “In the past two years, there has been a notable increase in college graduates that come to Israel to serve as lone soldiers,” she told Times of Israel.
Earlier this month, one of those American lone soldiers who’d recently returned from service in Gaza was the target of an overnight arson attack on vehicles parked at his family’s house in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Graffiti painted on the street accused him of being a murderer and proclaimed DEATH TO THE IDF.
Hellbound and Down 