FIDF supporters cheer troops, raise $20 million

“To assist the State, the army and to give back to the community.”

These are the goals of every Israeli soldier, including that of Lt. Tova Abebe, one of the representatives from the Israel Defense Forces greeted and lauded by the 1,400 leaders who attended the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) national Gala Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel last week. The dinner raised $20 million.

Abebe was born in Afula, Israel, but her parents fled Ethiopia during Operation Moses, Israel’s airlifts that rescued more than 7,000 Jews in seven weeks.

The airlift continued under a news blackout; after the cover was blown and the Arabs forced its halt, many Jews were left behind. Six years later, more than 14,000 were subsequently rescued in Operation Solomon in a 36-hour airlift in planes with the seats removed for maximum accommodation.

Growing up in Afula with three brothers and one sister, Tova learned and maintained programs unique to her culture while also learning overall Israeli, Jewish and Ethiopian identification and culture. She learned about all the holidays, including those unique to the Ethiopian Jews such as Sigd, held 50 days after Yom Kippur.

After high school, she completed a year of, shnat sherut (community service), working at a boarding school in Petach Tiva for “difficult children” of new immigrants from Ethiopia. The parents of these students had trouble helping their children since they didn’t know Hebrew.

This school, she said, would give the children “a chance to succeed.”

Tova enlisted in the International Cooperation Unit of the army in December 2008, working with translation, and in charge of all cooperation with other forces and to help coordinate joint exercises with NATO, the U.S. army and the French army. She received the Chief of Staff Award of Excellence and is now the Assistant to the Head of Strategic Planning Directorate in the IDF. Her job, she said, is to predict “what the army will look like in ten years, planning the future of the army.” The goal is to be able to make the army smaller to save expenses and yet be more productive and “smarter to be able to win the next war if they have one.”