Aaron Leibel's Israel Blog

In Figs, I stress how the Israel of 2020 is so different from the country in which my family and l lived during the 1970s and 1980s.   But I’m sure some things haven’t changed — such as parents’ anguish as their oldest child begins his or her army service.  In 1985, our oldest daughter Lauren was inducted into the IDF. Bonnie and I accompanied her to the recruiting station in Jerusalem where she and her fellow female draftees boarded buses to take them to their base.

I described the scene —the young women and their doting, worried parents — in an article I wrote for The Jerusalem Post. I reproduce the article here with permission from The Post.