The Content Jedi Blog

To commemorate the one year anniversary of October 7, I am releasing a series of blogs throughout the month that capture my April Jewish National Fund volunteer mission to Israel.

There are still over 100 hostages in Gaza, and it's day 403 that they are in captivity. 

These first appeared on social media.

April 18

Alon

They say never meet your heroes, because they may disappoint you.

I'm sure it happens, but the idiom couldn't be further from the truth when I met Alon. Here's the thing: I didn't know who Alon was until today, and I only spent 30 minutes with him. How could he be my hero?

I'll give you a hint: he served his (our) country so that Jews worldwide—especially those experiencing anti-Jewish racism in Paris, Sydney, Columbia University, Yale, USC, Berkeley, Northwestern, and other callous colleges—could seek safe harbor in our ancestral homeland.

And he had a strong role model who he barely knew: his father. When Alon was a very young boy, his father, a carpenter, hugged his family goodbye and went to fight in The Six Day War against the Arabic superpowers of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.

Alon's father was killed at the battle of Ammunition Hill, a fortified Jordanian military post in the northern part of Jordanian-ruled East Jerusalem and the western slope of Mount Scopus.

"I was the only kid in class without a father," he recalls. "Who took Daddy from us? I wanted answers."

So Alon asked his mother to tell him everything when he was 12-years-old, and she did for three hours in one sitting. It was a lot for a young boy, but he understood why his father made the sacrifices he did. When the short war ended and Israel took East Jerusalem, there was a lot to celebrate, but Alon's father's fellow soldiers of the 55th Brigade postponed their celebration to do something first.

"The following morning (after Israel won the war), there was a knock on the door. My mother opens the door and sees 10 soldiers, these amazing paratroopers, now civilians once again. They said, 'We're not paying a visit to Jerusalem before we are paying a visit to the families (of the fallen).' No one sent them."

Hearing that changed Alon’s life. Like his father, Alon joined the IDF and was chosen to be a founding member of Maglan, an elite unit of paratroopers which specializes in operating behind enemy lines and deep in enemy territory using advanced technologies and weaponry.

Among many military engagements, Alon fought in the Second Intifada, a reign of terror ordered by Yasser Arafat from 2000 to 2005, during which one thousand Israeli civilians were murdered. Alon didn’t offer up this part of the story; I asked him to speak about his military experience, and only then did he share, because Israelis always put humility above hubris.

This was further illustrated when he told us, “Bravery also belongs to you to come to a nation at war.”

Thank you, Alon, and may your father’s memory be for a blessing.

About the Author, David Telisman

I am a Writer and Content Creator, and I work with businesses to inspire their customers to buy from them. I believe that my clients deserve to feel proud of how their content marketing looks and what it says, and I deliver by providing expert copywriting and marketing solutions.

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