Before starting at Midreshet AMIT a little over two years ago, Addi Weiss was on the fence about doing a gap year in Israel. Now, as a lone soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, she isn’t sure she wants to come back to the United States.
Weiss, 20, grew up in Great Neck, New York, where she attended the North Shore Hebrew Academy. Like most seniors at Jewish high schools in the States, she weighed her options—applying to college and going to seminary in Israel for a year. She got into Brandeis University, and ended up deferring for a year. “It took me a really long time to decide,” said Addi. “It was yes, no, yes, no, and then finally I said yes, and I went. In the beginning, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t very happy. I kept asking myself, ‘Why did I come to Israel if I didn’t really want to be here?’”
The turning point for Addi came when she started volunteering as part of her time at Midreshet AMIT, whose motto is “Live Torah. Live Chesed. Live Israel.” The young women at the seminary volunteer with children from an AMIT facility that cares for at-risk children, but Addi and several of her friends also began volunteering with other organizations, one of which helps young soldiers.
During this time, Israel faced a fresh wave of terrorist attacks, and spending time with soldiers made Addi appreciate how much they do to protect their fellow Israelis. “After seeing everything all the soldiers were doing for me and my country, I knew I had to give back,” she said.
“I just loved volunteering with the soldiers, and I kept thinking, ‘Maybe I want to go to the army.’ Then I went home for Pesach for six weeks’ vacation, and I told myself, ‘If I still want to go when I come back, that means I really want to.’ I came back to Israel, and I still really wanted to go to the army, so I told my mom, and she said, ‘Okay, as long as I go to college afterward.’”
Addi credits Midreshet AMIT and the compassionate teachers and staff there with helping her make the decision to enlist in the IDF. “AMIT is a very supportive school,” she said. “They always tried to be encouraging and to make sure that every single one of their students was really happy.
“AMIT is really good about connections with teachers,” she said. “I loved going to the teachers’ houses for Shabbat. That was one of the main highlights for me.”
When she first thought about going to the army, her teachers suggested different places to volunteer that might help her decide. Addi’s teachers put her in touch with Midreshet AMIT alumnae who were in the army, so she could discuss the process with them and ask them about it. “They always try to support you,” she said. “They’ll never tell you that you can’t do something.”
After completing her time at Midreshet AMIT in June 2016, Addi spent the summer at home in Great Neck, then returned to Israel in September. She entered a mechina, a pre-army training program, and enlisted this past January.
Basic training was a shock and was really challenging, said Addi. “I was like, What did I get myself into?” After that, she learned to become an instructor, and now Addi serves as a combat instructor teaching specialized weapons to new recruits in the Givati Brigade, which she truly enjoys.
“I think once you’re done with training, it’s really different because you start doing your job. In the beginning, you’re like, ‘Oh no, I don’t know if I’m going to be good at this,’ but in the end, everyone learned, and it was just practice, practice, practice. After the first time instructing a group of soldiers, you’re like, ‘Wow, that wasn’t so bad!’
“Now I love seeing soldiers that I taught, and they tell me, ‘Hey, Addi, I did this or hey, Addi, I did that.’ And they get really excited about it.”
Addi still has several months to go in the IDF, but she said she wants to stay in Israel and pursue her undergraduate degree. She did, after all, make a deal with her mom to go to college.