Israeli Jews with links to Pittsburgh settle into new, wartime routines

Ahmi Ben-Yehudah’s nightmares begin before he falls asleep.

The Israeli Jew and former Pittsburgh resident has slumped in his bed the past six nights fiddling with his cellphone, worried that he won’t wake up to respond to a possible late-night text from his son, who is at war.

The young Israel Defense Forces reservist, Shachar, 24, was among 300,000 Israelis called to duty following last weekend’s violent attacks by Hamas militants.

At the end of his two daylong shifts, the soldier — his special unit’s location and mission are classified, even to the Ben-Yehudahs — gets a few moments to text his parents. Phone calls are not allowed.

“Sometimes, it comes at 2 o’clock in the morning, but we have no choice,” said Ben-Yehudah, 52, of Neve Ilan, a small village 10 miles west of Jerusalem. “We’re living hour to hour. What I really want is a good night of sleep.”

Born in Israel to parents who emigrated there in the 1970s, Ben-Yehudah and his own family lived on Bartlett Street in Squirrel Hill from 2003 to 2009, while he and his wife pursued graduate degrees at the University of Pittsburgh.

They rooted for the Pittsburgh Steelers during their time in Pittsburgh and their kids attended Community Day School on Squirrel Hill’s Forward Avenue. Their youngest child, Ore, 16, was born at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital on Nov. 29, 2007.

“We loved Pittsburgh,” Ben-Yehudah said. “We were very involved with Jewish life in Pittsburgh.”

This week, back in Israel, Ben-Yehudah has been horrified by what he’s seen and heard.

The father of three has been glued to his TV to spot notices naming the dead in real-time. He visited friends in Mazkeret Batya, near the city of Rehovot, whose children were slain or taken hostage.

It’s too early for Ben-Yehudah and other Jews to mourn, or sit Shiva. Many aren’t sure if family members are dead or missing. Facebook and WhatsApp groups overflow with gruesome images of decapitated babies. Hamas militants appeared to be indiscriminate in who they executed Saturday, slaughtering the elderly and people with disabilities.

“Everybody knows at least one person who was killed,” Ben-Yehudah said. “And these stories coming? They’re just unbelievable.”

Israeli media has reported that government officials only have identified 300 of the 1,200 dead bodies found to date, most of them soldiers. They can’t use fingerprints or dental records to identify civilians; many of the dead were set on fire, mutilated or decapitated.

“I truly believe in peace, but these people are not Muslims, these people are not seeking peace,” Ben-Yehudah said. “People need to understand, they’re not looking for democracy. They’re not looking for peace. They simply want to kill us.”

Steve Sokol was born in Brooklyn, lived in Squirrel Hill for 30 years and moved to Israel’s Bet Shemesh in 2015. He believes his friends back home need perspective on civilian deaths, which many believe recalls the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on Americans.

Israel’s 9 million residents cover about 8,500 square miles, roughly the size of New Jersey. But Sokol compares those numbers to the entire population of the U.S. — nearly 332 million in all.

“It’s the equivalent of 40,000 Americans being slaughtered in one day,” Sokol said. “This is worse than what Hitler did.”

Sokol, who lives about 35 miles from Gaza, works to temper frustration over how Israeli intelligence officials didn’t see Saturday’s attacks coming.

“People are wondering, ‘How could this happen?’ But it doesn’t help anybody to point fingers right now,” he said. “Everybody is united now. Everybody is united when there’s a war. And that’s the important thing.”

Outside Jerusalem on Thursday, Ben-Yehudah nervously listened to the IDF bombings in Gaza — the sound from the three-ton bombs dropping resonated over 45 miles — and waited for his daughter, Noa. The 21-year-old IDF reservist, called up Monday after her mandatory service ended in July, planned to take a single night’s break from her post in Israeli intelligence. She just wanted to sleep at home.

“We just want it to be quiet,” Ben-Yehudah said.

Not all the news in Israel is harrowing.

Rehovot resident Chevi Rubin intended to trek to a city school Wednesday to donate her O+ blood. The volunteer drive started at 10 a.m. local time.

“At 11, they told people to stop coming,” said Raimy Rubin, 39, Chevi’s husband. “There was a line around the block of people who showed up to give blood. And they didn’t have enough vials or equipment for it.”

Raimy Rubin grew up Jewish in Squirrel Hill, attending services at Congregation Poale Zedeck and school at Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh, before moving to Israel in 2007. A Western Pennsylvanian with roots stretching back at least three generations, Rubin’s two sons, now ages 9 and 11, were born in Pittsburgh. His parents and sister still live in Squirrel Hill.

In Israel, Raimy Rubin said, scores of people have been posting to WhatsApp, an audio- and video-calling app popular with Israelis, asking for spare shekels, Israel’s currency, to fill grocery carts and donate food to soldiers.

Hundreds of soldiers have set up base in a nearby school. Raimy Rubin and his neighbors have been offering them supplies and places to bathe.

“There’s just this general sense of love and togetherness,” Raimy Rubin said. “And that word — togetherness — is not a word I would have used to describe people in this country before Saturday.”

Rubin, a former Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh staffer and father of three, also is working to ease his neighbors’ suffering. He’s the content director for CauseMatch, a Jerusalem-based company formed in 2017 to provide crowd-funding platforms and support for nonprofits.

On Sunday morning, the first business day after the Hamas attacks, the company’s CEO Joseph Bornstein told employees it was no longer business as usual. They waived all their fees, and started fundraising and collecting supplies for soldiers through the Israeli group Chayal el Chayal (“Soldier to Soldier”).

By Thursday afternoon, CauseMatch boasted a roster with tons of local and international organizations looking to help Israelis in crisis. To date, they have raised more than $2.2 million.

To donate, go to https://cm1.causematch.com/en/israelwar23/

“Organizations are just signing with us left and right. Our verification folks can’t keep up with the number of organizations signing up,” Rubin said.

“I didn’t think I’d be able to do work if the work wasn’t directly tied to what’s going on,” he added. “It feels like a drop in the bucket. There’s a feeling of helplessness. But the fact that my job helps organizations get money or helps donors give money, it helps.”