Father and son serve side-by-side in reserves

On IDF reservists’ appreciation week, Moshe and Orel Edri tell the 'Post' that reserve duty has given them a chance to enjoy quality time together.

By DANIELLE ZIRI
Moshe and Orel Edri 370 (photo credit: IDF Spokesman)
Moshe and Orel Edri 370
(photo credit: IDF Spokesman)
In the five years following his mandatory service in the IAF, Orel Edri had never once been called to reserve duty, something that very much bothered him.
“I felt like I wasn’t contributing and I really wanted to,” he told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, during IDF reservists’ appreciation week. “I don’t know if it was because something was wrong, or they had no need to ask me.”
“You can look at it from a selfish point of view: I wanted the feeling of pitching in; it brings me back six years ago to my service,” he stressed.
Frustrated at the situation, Edri turned to his father, Moshe Edri, who works at the Israel Electric Company in Ashdod and has been serving in the reserves since 1982 as a vehicle mechanic.
“I understood that they were missing soldiers in his battalion, so I told him I wanted to join,” Orel explained.
It has now been about six months since he started serving in the reserves side by side with Moshe, for whom serving is “part of [his] love for Israel.”
“Every time they call me, I’m happy and I’m excited,” Moshe told the Post. “It’s fun to contribute. For as long as I can do that, feel like I help, that I am important, and receive good feedback, I will continue to serve.”
“The day they tell me that I’m a burden, I’ll go home,” he continued.
Moshe added that serving with his son allows them to enjoy “quality time” together.
“He is now married and he doesn’t live close, so it’s great to get to be together all day, work together and sleep in the same room,” Moshe said. “Even when he lived at home we didn’t get to do that.”
The first time the two were called for reserve duty together was during Operation Pillar of Defense last fall.
While he admits that being with his father helped him go through the stressful time, Orel also expressed “mixed feelings.”
“We both had to leave the family at home and they were worried,” he explained. “I’m with him, and it is always better together, but we are also thinking about my mom and my wife who were both alone.”
“We were constantly calling home. They calmed us, we calmed them,” Moshe added.
“You have to give credit to the women – they really support us.”
“At my job, too, they support reservists, and that’s also something very important,” he continued.
“I think we have gone completely opposite to what we used to in this country: People don’t value it. They think that whoever serves in the reserves is a patsy. It shouldn’t be like that.”