My Son Is in the East   

As the war drags on, our fervent prayers have lost some of their urgency. But for those with children on the front, the war and worry are ever present — and for parents of lone soldiers, whose fear is compounded by their distance, those emotions can be even more overwhelming. Family First speaks with parents of lone soldiers, both religious and non-religious, to give a window into what it means to have a child at the front

“I’m fine, going out for an assignment rn, I love you all, send my love to everyone. It was a scary day, but I’m glad I had the zechut to help protect am yisrael. I will speak to you when I can.”

That was the text Chava saw when she turned on her phone after Yom Tov on October 8. It was from her son Yaakov, a lone soldier, who has been in and out of Gaza since the beginning of the conflict.

Around December of his post-high school year in a yeshivah in Eretz Yisrael, Yaakov, the oldest of Chava’s three children, expressed a desire to join the IDF. “I told him no, he needs to finish the year, and then go to college,” says Chava. But even though he was a good son and listened to his mother, returning to the States and starting his studies at Yeshiva University, he continued to express his desire to enlist.

Over the next several months, Yaakov’s father had many conversations with him to explore his son’s reasons for wanting to join the army, to make sure he was aware of what it would really mean to be in the IDF. Satisfied with his son’s responses, his father told him, “You can go, you just have to make sure your mom agrees.”