Posted on October 25, 2023
My name is Shachar. I’m on a gap year at Mechinat Ein Prat. The war caught us at the mechina, and in a moment, the organization transformed into Lev Echad (one heart), a civilian assistance organization in times of emergency.
We immediately opened a command center that operates all day and night, providing transportation support, delivering food, supplies, medicine, prayer books to soldiers and their families and to displaced families. We became the “Home Front Soldiers.” We are reaching places that need us. We are babysitting for children whose parents are either in the reserves, manning security posts, attending funerals or shivas and more.
The work is fulfilling, giving me a sense of purpose and action. But alongside this intense focus, is fear, the feeling of being unprotected (the gap year is located in an unsafe area) causes me to be emotionally detached.
Right now, I am in Eilat volunteering in hotels for displaced families. The children are desperate for attention and the parents are exhausted. Many times the parents need psychological care or just a moment for themselves to grieve or catch their breath, and that’s where we come in. We organize activities and create a daily schedule for those in the hotel. I’m starting to get used to the feeling of random babies on my lap. Slowly but surely, I have learned how to approach the children in a way that makes them feel that I’m on their side and that they can trust me.
We volunteer most of the day. In my free time, since I’m responsible for the content and schedule of the gap year, I organize lessons, sports, and group activities to keep the body and mind clear and the heart in shape.
Knowing that young people my age — my friends who went straight into the IDF and did not do a gap year like me — are currently on the battlefield, is horrific. I try to keep things together.
It’s not easy being separated from home, family, and friends at a time like this, especially when my father is in the north as an army reservist. But I know that everyone is doing their best, and everyone, from the youngest to the oldest, is involved in action.
I feel that I am needed here more than anywhere else, and that’s why I’m staying here.
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