24/08/2026
“At 14, I began discovering a world outside the neighborhood where I grew up in Bnei Brak, and slowly I started asking questions.
My father could see something was changing in me. When I told him, he took it very hard and tried to ‘bring me back to the right path.’
At 16 and a half, I knew that life was not for me. I left home and the Haredi community, and my relationship with my family was cut off.
It was shortly after Sukkot, the last holiday I celebrated at home with everyone.
When Passover came, I gathered five or six friends. Everyone cooked something, and we tried to make a Seder together. But it just didn’t work. The memories of my extended family, the songs, the laughter around the table, and the food I loved only made everything hurt more.
That was when the holidays changed from something I looked forward to into days I preferred to sleep through or, after I enlisted, spend on duty at the base.
Then I came to the Lone Soldier Center in Memory of Michael Levin.
Before my first holiday meal there, I didn’t know what to expect. I walked in and was surrounded by Lone Soldiers like me, volunteers who had come to spend the holiday with us, some with their entire families, and the Center’s staff.
It wasn’t the same as home. But I had somewhere to be again.
After celebrating a few holidays together, I even began bringing pieces of home with me. Songs I loved and traditions that had been unique to my family. It gave me back the feeling that I belonged.
Maybe you’re reading this and thinking that sometimes you would love a holiday without the traffic, the whole family, and meal after meal. But for me and my friends, the holidays can be a very difficult time.
That is what the Lone Soldier Center gives us: a place to return to. A holiday table waiting for us. Home-cooked food. And most importantly, the knowledge that someone is looking out for me and that I don’t have to be alone.”
Y.’s story is the story of thousands of Lone Soldiers who may not have a place, or people, with whom to celebrate the holidays.
We are here for them. Help us show them they are not alone.
Donate a holiday meal >>> https://my.israelgives.org/en/fundme/HighHolidays5787
