Despite some of the negative aspects of the army, Sasha recommends coming from abroad to join the IDF. “Each soldier gives more support to the State.” After finishing his service, Sasha plans to travel and then learn in Yeshivat Machon Meir.
What happens when you put two lone soldiers together? You get a married couple like Miriam (Clayman) and Ben Yablon! Miriam and Ben met in 2012 on a one-year post-high school program at Bar Ilan University. They decided to make aliyah and signed up for a Nefesh B’Nefesh flight. After the program, they went home for a final goodbye visit and packed their things.
Ben went to ulpan at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu and Miriam enrolled in the hesder program for women in Midreshet Lindenbaum in Jerusalem. “I decided that it would be the perfect place for me to continue my Torah learning and to serve my country in the best possible framework,” explains Miriam.
Ben was drafted into the army that winter and they got officially engaged. When they got married Miriam had only just finished her year learning in Lindenbaum and Ben was just about done with basic training as a combat soldier in the artillery corps.
Ben grew up in Portland, Oregon, while Miriam grew up in Denver, Colorado. Ben relates, “I am from a traditional and Zionistic family, and grew up with a love and passion for Judaism and Israel. I went to Jewish day school until 8th grade, Jewish summer camp every year and I was very active in NCSY.”
Miriam describes her upbringing as, “I come from a Modern Orthodox family which gradually became more and more shomer mitzvot. I received a pluralistic Jewish education from kindergarten until 12th grade. That being said, I did not end high school with a fervor for Torah or being Jewish. I did possess, however, a strong desire to live in the Jewish Homeland.”
Religious Zionism prompted Ben to make aliyah. “By the time I was 18 I knew I was going to move to Israel and I wasn’t about to wait until after college. I have so many friends who say they want to move but that now is not the time. Most people who say that never end up here. Something is always getting in the way… I knew that it was my duty to protect my people along with my brothers. Besides, what gives me the right to go to college happily in America when Jews my age are sitting in tanks on the border, sleeping in holes, risking their lives for Am Yisrael every day? What gives me the right to say that my education, career, whatever it is, is more important than being here, fighting for the country? It is a missed opportunity if you make aliyah when you are young and strong and don’t serve in some form or another. Israelis who do the army push off getting their degrees, learning, a career, for a couple of years for pikuach nefesh – in the end they turn out alright. It’s the least I can do to help.”
What did Ben imagine the army would be like? “I thought it would be much more fun than it is. It’s a lot of hard work, pressure and someone is always looking to get someone in trouble. Even the fun/exciting things like shooting artillery, shooting our rifles and making arrests get old after a while. Younger kids sometimes ask me, with wonder in their eyes, if it’s like the video games. I ask them, ‘Have you ever played a game where you clean a toilet?’”
Miriam didn’t really know what to expect. “I knew it would be a big challenge and culture shock.” But, in the end, it was less of a culture shock than she had imagined. “I did basic training with friends from the midrasha and afterwards I was placed in Air Force International Affairs. It was hard in the beginning to adjust to a primarily secular environment after two years of spiritual infusion,” Miriam informs me.
