By Howie Stier / Special to the BJV

“There’s this amazing culture that exists at the Kotel, people who go there everyday,” says Dr. Joshua Yurfest, a compact and soft-spoken man recounting a break during his two-week mission to Israel. “All of a sudden these Ethiopian Jews appeared” he continues, now more animated “all dressed in white and they were carrying ornate white umbrellas- and you know, they daven in a circle? How wonderful, I thought - how much depth we have in Judaism.”

He punctuates this memory with a broad, avuncular smile.

We’re in a café in downtown Pittsfield near his office and Dr. Yurfest is flaunting phone pics of his recent experience supporting Operation Haravot Barzel in Israel’s ongoing war to exist. Here he is in an unairconditioned warehouse a few miles from the Gaza combat zone, and he’s sporting that same smile. In the middle of the desert, beside Home Depot-scale shelving disappearing into the distance laden with army duffle bags he’s packed and racked, he is smiling. And he’s sporting that same smile in a ceremony, accepting a certificate attesting to his “contributing to Israel’s strength and security.”

“Black Shabbat – that’s what they call October 7 in Israel- was a hard blow to me,” said Dr. Yurfest. “I was so emotionally distraught – these are my Jewish brothers and sisters.”

His initial response, dropping tzadakah to the Magen David Adom, felt inadequate. “I was just sitting on the couch, writing checks,” he remembers. “The rapes, murders, castrations, mutilations – I couldn’t shake it. It’s my land and I couldn’t just sit here. I had to go!” 

An initial inquiry into offering his skills as a physician was quickly shot down. “I spoke with the Israeli consul – he said ‘We have 20,000 doctors; we don’t need any more.” What Israel needs is people to perform staff-support tasks to free up war fighters, and this is a need filled by the non-profit Sar-El – The National Project for Volunteers for Israel – which places volunteers to work alongside soldiers on Israeli Defense Force bases. Dr. Yurfest learned of the program from a veteran Sar-El participant and a longtime member of his shul, Chabad of the Berkshires. 

“I’m a Zionist” he told the interviewer when asked why he wanted to join Sar-El. “She asked me one other question, said Doctor Yurfest ‘can you run a 100 yard dash?’ I said I can make a 100 yards, I don’t know about the dash part.” These answers satisfied all requirements for acceptance to the program.

But where Dr. Yurfest’s saw an opportunity to perform the mitzvah v’ohavto l’raiacho komocho, his family saw an unappealing and dangerous venture. His wife balked at joining the trip, telling him: “I’m not ready to make the kids orphans.” But as Moshe Rabbeinu continuously pulls us to Israel, Dr. Yurfest nullified her fears and followed through with his plan.

At Ben Gurion Airport, Dr. Yurfest joined other volunteers in a spontaneous hora before being shuttled onto a bus, its destination undisclosed. “I had no idea where I was going,” he recalls. “You couldn’t ask. The base we were going to could be anywhere in Israel.”

Dr. Yurfest, now 68 years old, has made regular trips to Israel since his teens and so is familiar with the geography. “I realized we passed Be’er Sheva. Then, when we passed Mishmar Hanegev, I realized we really were going f***king south. Next thing I know, we roll into this huge, incredible base – there was all this stuff, trucks and the flatbeds that move the tanks. My first thought was: ‘I hope they have many more of these!’”

Signage identified the place only as Base 559. There a logistics the unit maintained transport trucks and picked up support gear for troops deployed in Gaza. While the precise location of the base was secret, the general geographical local became apparent. “The first boom I heard, I really thought it was thunder. Then I realized: we’re in the middle of the dessert. ’Yes, those are explosions,’ the people there told me. ‘The border with Gaza is five miles away.’”

This didn’t rattle Dr. Yurfest at all. “Once in a while the earth would really tremble,” he says. “But it wasn’t that disturbing. I mean, it was during the day only!”

The first morning on duty began with Dr. Yurfest in olive drab uniform, the volunteers falling into formation, and their commander announcing: “I know I’m here because I’m beautiful.” The blonde soldier (seen in the image above), who had ended up with the volunteers rather than a combat assignment due to a medical exemption, continued: “Now – who wants to raise the flag?”

“I jumped up first!” said Dr. Yurfest, who cited singing “Hatikvah” at each day’s formation among the multinational array of volunteers as a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The volunteers had come from Australia, Canada, Italy, and Finland, and not all were Jewish. Among them were Christians from Manitoba and one was a professional Elvis impersonator. A recurring participant with whom Dr. Yurfest shared dormitory housing, the Rev. Larry Green, is an Evangelical. These are believers in Christ who were originally courted by former prime minister Ariel Sharon to invest in and support the Jewish State, but whose obsession with Israel is regarded by some with ambivalence, and notably with antagonism from Orthodox Judaism.

One might expect grunt work to be unnerving for an accomplished physician – Dr. Yurfest was director of Physical Therapy at Berkshire Medical Center for 30 years and, on a normal day, treats acute, chronic injuries. However, drudgery like wrestling foam sleep pads into canvas covers for an entire warehouse shift enriched Dr. Yurfest. “While we were working, the soldiers could relax,” he said. “They lied on the ground, looked at their phones. That satisfied me, actually made me feel great.” Neither did the shared spartan barracks discomfort him (aside from the issue of the volunteer he diagnosed with sleep apnea). The son of Holocaust survivors from Chelm, Poland, Dr. Yurfest would not describe himself as choosy. As he put it: “We weren’t coddled when we were growing up.”

He hit the Mincha minyan on base each day after work (the distance to shul on the sprawling base kept him from attending Shacharit). “It was Mizrahic style. I loved the niguunim.” And recounting a scene not supported in mainstream American media, Dr. Yurfest reported the afternoon worship among Israel’s military was ethnically diverse. “There were Yemeni and Egyptian Jews, black Africans, and Indian Jews who had immigrated to Israel. I was the only white Polish colonizer!”

Interacting with soldiers coming out of the combat zone was discouraged, not out of intelligence concerns but rather as a way of following Judaism’s considerate guidance of ‘shomer lashon’ so as to avoid conversation may aggravate those exposed to psychological trauma. “But our presence alone comforted them” he said. When given the opportunity, “I explained why I was there what I was doing, they all loved the fact that we were here, and were so very appreciative.” 

Nightly team-building talks were emotional and uplifting, Dr. Yurfest said. “We sat in a circle, beginning always with disbelief at Black Shabbat. They asked about antisemitism in America, on the college campuses. I told they about the ceasefire resolution conflict in Williamstown” he said, referencing the anti-Israel movement driven by Williams College student radicals condemning Israel and calling for a (one sided) cease fire. “I told them how we in the Berkshires were able to get that voted down.” 

Talk never turned to Netanyahu and the ongoing demonstrations that divided Israel politically prior to the war.

“They all know we have to destroy Hamas,” he said. “Everybody is united. I think these (anti-Netanyahu) demonstrations are putting soldiers and hostages at risk.” He added that he really enjoyed living in a milieu free of agitators “who hate America.”

For those considering volunteer trips but are apprehensive about time off from their vocation, Dr. Yurfest avowed that the digital nomad stuff works. Technology ensured that, from barracks a few miles from the Gaza border, Dr. Yurfest’s patients in Pittsfield were taken care of. “Before heading to the warehouse, I reviewed x-rays, MRI scans, read reports. There’s a program, E-Clinic, I used to make my recommendations and send notes to my staff.”

Dr. Yurfest disagrees with the widespread perception that Israel is unsafe to visit, or is in any way not tourist-friendly as the Gaza War is being waged. “There was a massive barrage of (incoming) missiles while I was in Tel Aviv and not one struck the ground!” He was also in the country when the unprecedented multi-platform Iranian attack was launched – all 350 of their missiles failed utterly to hit their targets.

“This was miraculous,” Dr. Yurfest exulted. “Ha’Kadosh Baruch Hu is protecting us. In Tel Aviv, the beaches are packed, the clubs are full. Haifa is lit up at night – the place is alive. And there are plenty tourists – Nigerians, for example, people who are used to conflict.” And volunteers continue to arrive in droves – since October 7, over 40,000 volunteers have cycled through the Sar-El program, according the website Sar-El.Org.

Dr. Yurfest shared the memory of having Shabbos dinner in the Moslem quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City not long after his arrival in Israel. His host Rabbi Joseph Zilberman taught the gathered at his table that when one walks in Israel, every step is a mitzvah.

“I put in 20,000 steps one day, and that’s a big basketful of mitzvot!,” said Dr. Yurfest. “I can’t wait to do it again.”

The son of a survivor of the Lvov Ghetto and Janowska concentration camp, Howie Stier is a longtime journalist who reported on crime and mayhem in the five boroughs for the New York Times, covered celebrity news from the red carpet and back alleys of Hollywood Boulevard for Entertainment Tonight, and has relocated to the Berkshires to focus on two considerations: literature and learning Torah – as havel havalim hakol havel (breath, breath, all is breath).