Ynet has a story on 23 American Jews who are volunteering to serve in the IDF. Rahm Emanuel did something like this once, and so did Jeffrey Goldberg.
Until a year ago, [Nathaniel] Schlakman’s future seemed quite clear. He worked out five times a week in order to get accepted into the Marines. However, he ultimately landed two months ago at Ben Gurion Airport with the first group of soldiers organized by Aish Machal.
"I couldn’t keep sitting on my couch in my spacious house, watching on television how IDF soldiers are defending Israel, which is also my country," he explained.
"I studied history, and I understood that all the big disasters, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, happened because we didn’t have a country of our own, and we had nowhere to go. I decided that if I’m going to serve, it has to have meaning."
"Nathaniel told me that if he’s going to take a bullet, he’d rather take one in Israel, for the country," said Aharon-Yosef Katsof, who found Schlakman in the religious school in which he studied...
Yakov Kroll, 20, whose dream is to serve in Givati, arrived in Israel after two years of studying accounting and real estate at a Santa Monica college.
"I have always asked myself what I can do for the country," he said in fluent Hebrew, which the volunteers obtained during a six-week preparatory course in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. "I thought that if I’d be a lawyer, maybe I could sue Iran, or if I’d work in public relations, I could do hasbara (public relations) for the country. But ultimately, I understood that there is only one way to truly contribute to the country, and that is the military."
Katsof met with Kroll’s father in Beverly Hills at the home of a real estate magnate who wishes to remain anonymous. "He funds us," said Katsof, refusing to provide any additional details. "I told the father, ‘I have a program that fits your son to a T,’ and that was enough."
