N.Y.-based nonprofit Belev Echad — ‘one heart’ in Hebrew — was ‘born for October 7,’ founder Uriel Vigler told NR.
For over a week in late September, Liroy Dahan enjoyed South Florida’s “vibes.”
He and his friends rode bikes around Miami Beach, took a helicopter tour, spotted alligators on an Everglades airboat ride, and chilled on a yacht. Dahan said his favorite part of the trip was the front-row seats to watch Lionel Messi play with Miami’s soccer club.
But most important, for nine days Dahan, 21, was far from Israel and the war in Gaza that has consumed his life and tortured his mind for most of the last year.
“That trip, you don’t think about nothing,” he said. “Don’t think about the war. Just enjoy.”
Dahan was one of eight wounded Israel Defense Forces soldiers who traveled to Florida on a restorative trip sponsored by Belev Echad, a New York nonprofit whose mission is to save the lives of IDF soldiers who are wounded or scarred while defending their country.
The organization uses promises of trips to New York, Miami, and Los Angeles in part to inspire healing soldiers to keep their eyes on the future and to prioritize their recovery.
Dahan, a combat medic who engaged in firefights with Hamas terrorists on October 7 and was later deployed in Gaza and on Israel’s northern border, told National Review in limited English that the Miami trip helped heal his soul, expressing his relief with a deep exhale.
Belev Echad adopts wounded IDF veterans and provides them with whatever services they need to heal — physical therapy, occupational therapy, mental-health treatment, spiritual counseling, job placement. The organization brings wounded soldiers to Brooklyn to be outfitted with prosthetic limbs. It owns a house by the Tel HaShomer Hospital near Tel Aviv that includes a gym and a swimming pool for hydrotherapy. It offers a popular dog-therapy program, mixed-martial-arts training, and even a surfing program.
The organization is staffed mostly by wounded vets who understand the pain and frustration of their fellow wounded soldiers.
“We will take a soldier from the time that her or she is wounded . . . giving him or her whatever they need until they recover,” said Rabbi Uriel Vigler, who founded Belev Echad with his wife, Shevy. “We want them to go to college — we give scholarships. We want them to find jobs — we find them jobs. We want them to be productive in their lives. Whatever that means, we’ll do that.”
Belev Echad’s roots stretch back to 2010, in the years after the Second Lebanon War when Vigler and his wife were approached with the idea of inviting some IDF soldiers to visit them in New York. It was an eye-opening experience for a couple of reasons, said Vigler, who also directs the Chabad Israel Center of the Upper East Side.
“First of all, we saw how much the soldiers appreciated and loved the trip,” Vigler said. But they also saw how much the Jewish community loved having them. “Five hundred people showed up to a Shabbat dinner just like that. It was, like, wow.”
For a few years, they continued with that model, bringing groups of IDF veterans to New York to visit and to be fêted by the local Jewish community. Vigler said they expanded the organization after the 2014 war in Gaza, deciding that they needed to do more to care for the soldiers while they were back in Israel.
In the wake of October 7, the organization grew again, and it grew rapidly.
“We quadrupled in size overnight,” Vigler said. “We just cannot say ‘No’ to a wounded soldier.”
“It’s almost like we were born for October 7,” he added.
After October 7, Belev Echad converted its recreation house into a day-treatment center that offers 14 types of rehab services. They have dozens of volunteers who “cook up a storm” for the roughly 200 soldiers who come by every day, Vigler said.
“Some come just to relax, to just chill. Some come for therapy, for treatment,” he said, adding that some come because they know it’s a place where they can “look into the eyes of a fellow warrior, a fellow soldier, and he understands the pain that they’re going through.”
More than 10,000 IDF soldiers have been injured since Hamas terrorists attacked last year. In that time, Belev Echad has aided about 1,700 soldiers and their families, Vigler said.
Belev Echad’s support mostly comes from Americans, Vigler said, noting that the organization’s name means “with one heart” in Hebrew.
“Basically, one heart means our heart in America is your heart, because your pain is our pain, your struggles are our struggles,” he said. “It was based on the idea that Americans in Miami, Los Angeles, and New York care about what’s happening in Israel. And despite the voices of hatred, despite the protests and all that, most Americans are good people.”
Dahan, who now works with Belev Echad’s food-packaging project, said the organization has helped him to cope with the trauma of the last year.
On October 7, Dahan was among the IDF soldiers who came under attack by Hamas terrorists near the Kfar Aza kibbutz in southern Israel. He said he and some of his fellow soldiers were in a tank that terrorists attacked with rocket-propelled grenades.
“I killed the leader of the group that tried to kill us,” he said. “Because I killed the leader, all the terrorists that had been outside the [tank] just run away. Only one tried to . . . take the body of the leader, and I shoot him, too. I shoot him in the hand, and he run away.”
Dahan said he was unable to save his girlfriend, who was killed at a nearby military base. He said he tried to help her, but “there were a lot of terrorists.”
Dahan’s hearing was damaged in the fight. After October 7, Dahan also served in Gaza and on the Lebanon border. The constant missile attacks triggered his post-traumatic stress disorder, he said. He wanted to quit, but he kept fighting for his friends.
“I put me last,” Dahan said, adding that he “tried to hide what I’m feeling, tried to hide everything. On the nights, being so bad for me, everyone sleeping, I’m awake and crying.”
After he was discharged, Dahan said he mostly stayed in his home, avoiding others. But one friend kept calling, inviting him to the Belev Echad house.
For “two weeks he tried to tell me, ‘Come, come, come,’” he said. Dahan was hesitant. “No, no, not today. Maybe tomorrow.”
Dahan eventually decided to “just try one time,” he said. One visit couldn’t hurt, he figured. But he didn’t have a car. They offered to pick him up.
When he arrived, he said, the compassion — “the hugs” – was “crazy.”
While Dahan will never be completely free from the horrors he experienced on October 7 and on the battlefield over the past year, the treatment he’s received at Belev Echad has helped him to recover and to “think less bad things at night,” he said.
“Belev Echad is the greatest thing that happened in my life,” he said. “It changed my life.”