The non-Jews volunteering to help Israel

Thousands of volunteers come to Israel each year offering services from working in kibbutz orchards to giving soldiers free massages. For most, volunteering is an experience of Jewish solidarity, but some come without that connection.

Of the 43,000 volunteers who belong to the Sword of Iron Facebook group, a clearinghouse for volunteers and volunteer organisations, more than 8,000 are not Jewish.

What propels them to give them time and energy to a beleaguered country that isn’t even theirs?  

Sam Cox
United Kingdom

When Sam was a young girl, her grandfather told her about his experience liberating a concentration camp, as a World War II British soldier. He later served in Mandatory Palestine, where he refused to turn in weapons stockpiled by Jewish communities. “After what he saw, he knew the Jews would be attacked again,” says Sam.

Her grandfather’s experience shaped Sam’s feelings about Jews and Israel. At age 20 she spent “the happiest year of my life” on Kibbutz Kabri in the Western Galil. She also became aware of how close that idyllic life was to attack when she visited her paratrooper boyfriend in the West Bank.

Thirty-five years later, after October 7, she scraped together her savings and came back to the country she loves to volunteer. Her motivation is moral but not religious. “I’m an atheist. I came to Israel because it’s right.”