It isn’t just Israel’s heroic reservist soldiers who deserve a pat on the back—and infinitely more—for putting their lives on the line on behalf of the rest of the country, it’s also their wives, who wait silently at home. These women are grappling with a challenging reality, and they’re alone. There are, however, several initiatives that have emerged in recent days to help these women.
Angels of the Home Front
By Deborah Danan-Algemeiner News Service
Angels of the Home Front Reservist Yoel Yelin-Freund with his wife Lior and their newborn. Photo: NRG
Two social movements based in Jerusalem, Yerushalmim and the Jerusalem Movement, have teamed up in setting up a giant database of volunteers to assist the wives of reservists in everyday chores. Volunteers are helping the women by doing anything from babysitting, cooking, cleaning, moving apartments, dog-walking, shopping and even massages.
“These are very complicated days for managing a household, a-two-year-old who misses his father in reserve duty, and a baby of two months who doesn’t even know he’s in the world yet,” said Lior Yelin-Freund, mother of two. “Now I understand just how much I’ve gotten used to leaning on my husband, who is a full partner in everything and an active father. He is also my best friend, and I miss him. My days and nights are filled with ruptured sleep, because one child or the other always needs something, and I’m desperate for help just so I can continue to be a happy mother. After all, they’re not to blame in all of this.”
Yesterday, Yelin-Freund received a phone call from Yerushalmim. Apparently someone listed her as a reservist’s wife. “A young woman asked me how she could help,” Yelin-Freund recounts. “When I protested she was adamant, ‘Enough. Of course it’s no bother – do you have any idea how many of us there are who just want to give? Now what do you need? Food? Shopping? Cleaning?’ I said thank you and explained to her that these are chores I’ve either given up on or I just keep on postponing.”
Within ten minutes, Yelin-Freund received another five phone calls from strangers. One was Eyal Orgal who informed her that he would be handling her shopping. “I was in shock,” she relates. “I even received a follow-up text from Eyal, ‘You didn’t ask for diaper cream, do you need some?’ And then he said he could stop by the pharmacist on his way back. I felt as if he knows me. The thought that we were utter strangers was not even in my head. Amazing.”
Since the two Jerusalem organizations put a call out on Facebook, over 500 volunteers offered their time and have helped hundreds out reservist wives all over the country.
“In our experience, these reservist wives aren’t the type to ask for help,” said Shira Winkler-Katz, director of the Yerushalmim movement. “For that reason, we go straight to them ourselves, and reassure them that we are determined to help them. And it works.”
Together with a few friends, Shoshana Ben Shlomo, whose own husband was called up a few weeks ago, started another organization called Eishet Chayil (woman of valor) that also helps the wives of reservists. It started quite by chance. “I have a Whatsapp group of friends from high school and I texted them that my husband had been called up. Naturally, they offered to help and suddenly we realized that there must be lots of women just like me who are in need of help. We started to raise money and every day our volunteers call women to find out if they need babysitters, cleaners or meals.”
So far, more than 200 families have received help from Ben-Shlomo’s ad-hoc organization. The women are asked to fill out an expense form detailing how much money they spend on a meal in a restaurant or for a babysitter or cleaner, and then they are recompensed directly into their bank accounts.
“What we’re doing really moves these women,” said Ben-Shlomo. “That in the middle of this insanity, there’s someone out there who understands the difficulties that they are going through.”
Reservist Natan Levine and his wife Lahav. Photo: Courtesy Lahav Levine
A number of women posted testimonials of their experiences on Eishet Chayil’s Facebook page. One woman wrote: “We’re going through difficult times. My husband was called up over a week and half ago. I’m at home with three children under the age of seven. It’s difficult for them that their father isn’t around and the atmosphere in general is affecting them, including of course, the sirens and the sense that something big and scary is happening. And then, amongst all this difficulty, a wonderful volunteer called me up and offered to treat me and my children to a meal in a restaurant. The kids were thrilled at the idea of getting spoiled for the night just because their father is a hero. It made them feel like heroes at home.”
Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, young wives in the city’s community of new immigrants, are also feeling the brunt of being alone while their husbands are away on the field. Lahav Levine, a journalist and immigrant from the US, describes what it’s like. “The hardest part is really just being alone at the end of the day. All of the wonderful things about being married to someone you love, having a partner to get through life with, are whisked away for an indefinite amount of time,” she said. “Then, as if that isn’t stressful enough, my husband, Natan, is in a combat unit and I’m left wondering if he’s safe and sometimes if he’s even alive.”
Others in the city’s thriving, young professional immigrant community are doing their part in the “reservist wives” war effort. Rachel Nissim, an immigrant from the UK, put out a call this past Friday on English speaking social media forums, asking for people to volunteer to help reservists’ wives, and within a matter of days had over 200 people signed up from all over Israel.
Nissim echoes Winkler-Katz’s sentiment that many women are recalcitrant when it comes to asking for assistance. “They’re reluctant to step forward because they feel like there are others out there that need it more,” she said. “The truth is though, that as volunteers, we feel helpless and we desperately want to help in whatever tiny way we can.”
English-speaking wives of reservists who need assistance can write to Rachel Nissim at [email protected].
Deborah Danan
Angels of the Home Front: Deborah Danan is a freelance journalist based out of Tel Aviv. She received her undergraduate degree in Hebrew University and her master’s in Bar Ilan University. Her work as an editor and investigative journalist has taken her across the Middle East, from Ramallah to Jerusalem to Cairo to Amman. She is also a foreign media consultant to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Angels of the Home Front
