V., who is currently serving in the IDF’s elite Duvdevan commando unit, credits his recently becoming an officer in the army to a meeting he had in 12th grade while at Yeshivat AMIT Eliraz in Petach Tikva.
V. was among the many soldiers who recently completed an officer’s training course and said his determination to perform significant army service stems from a meeting he and his 11th-grade classmates had with Miriam Peretz, who lost two of her sons, Uriel and Eliraz, during their army service. The AMIT yeshiva where V. studied is named after Eliraz Peretz.
“She told us about her sons’ sense of purpose and about how, even after losing two of her boys, she sent her third son to serve in the army,” V. told an Israeli newspaper recently. “She read us things that Uriel and Eliraz wrote, which are still with me to this day. Eliraz wrote how, when you do something, you have to see it through to the end – whether it’s love, being a friend, or serving in a combat unit… After that meeting, I knew I wanted to perform significant military service and I decided to enroll in a pre-military academy and prepare properly for the army.”
V., one of five children, was born in Ethiopia and immigrated to Israel with his family when he was 7. At first, they lived in an absorption center near Jerusalem and then the family settled in Petach Tikva. He said his family struggled to assimilate, largely because they lived in a mostly Ethiopian neighborhood where his parents and other elders spoke Amharic.
His now-closed elementary school was the subject of controversy years ago because it was majority Ethiopian and the municipality prohibited parents from transferring their children to other schools in the city. When he got to Yeshivat AMIT Eliraz, for middle school, V. said it was challenging because the student body was not exclusively Ethiopian, and it took him some time to get used to the diversity. “We quickly connected with one another,” he recalled, “and soon all the different groups were friends.”
His Hebrew skills greatly improved in school, and when his parents need help dealing with bureaucracy or a government office, he steps in.
Still vivid in his memory is that meeting with Miriam Peretz. “Since 12th grade, I’ve known that I would become an officer, that if I am going to contribute, I’m going to go all the way and not just be an ordinary soldier. When it comes to my service, I want to convey to my subordinates the same sense of purpose. I want them to understand what is expected of them…and to understand that the friends you serve within the army will be with you to the end, even in civilian life, and that what you are doing is for them.”
