I was 20 years old when I first met Josh Boone. I was a small, relatively quiet kid, fresh out of my second year in an American yeshiva in Jerusalem, trying to join an IDF combat unit. My yeshiva wasn’t known for sending students to the army, but I was raised in a Zionist home, went to a Zionist school, and I knew what I wanted.
When the draft call finally came, I moved into a run-down building for lone soldiers in Jerusalem. No furniture, no appliances – just a bed frame, a closet, and a roommate. I didn’t care. I was just happy to be on my own, starting my journey. It wasn’t long before I met Josh.
Josh lived a few floors above me and had made it his mission to befriend everyone in the building. We were complete opposites. I was small and reserved; Josh was big and larger than life. I grew up on the East Coast of the United States, in an Orthodox home, and was fresh out of yeshiva. Josh grew up in Idaho and would spend Shabbat chain-smoking and contemplating which tattoo to get next.
None of that stopped him from approaching me with a goofy smile on his face, offering me some chewing tobacco, and telling me how he’d grown up shooting guns and was going to be the best sniper in the IDF.I had never met anyone like him, but his energy was magnetic, and we quickly became good friends.
I was never the popular kid. Josh Boone didn’t care. When I would show up at a barbecue or walk into the Lone Soldier Center on a busy Friday morning, I would immediately hear “KAAAHNNNNN!” and see Josh bulldozing through the crowd to give me a big hug and question loudly why I didn’t yet have a beer in hand.
We ended up enlisting around the same time: late 2016-early 2017.
As if to intentionally maintain our polarity, I drafted to the Paratroopers, and Josh went to Golani, our friendly “rivals.” We used to trash each other’s berets and argue endlessly over whose rifles were better. On Saturday nights, Josh would call me from Mahane Yehudah market, seven hours before I had to be back on base, insisting I come out for “just one drink.”
For some reason, I almost always did.
Josh became a sniper, just like he said he would. Honestly, I was a little jealous. But we each had our own path. By the time we were discharged, I wasn’t living at the lone soldier building anymore, but it didn’t take long for our paths to cross again. Josh told me he was coming to join me as a security officer protecting Jewish families in the Old City of Jerusalem. I remember laughing, imagining his Idahoan half-Hebrew confusing the hell out of people on the radio.
I was spot-on, of course.
Everyone loved him all the same.
On October 7, 2023, I went South to fight Hamas. Josh went North to fight Hezbollah.
Four months later, I was home. But Josh stayed, bouncing from reserve unit to reserve unit, always saying there was more to do, more people to protect.
We spoke less as the war went on, but every conversation we managed to squeeze in ended the same way:
“Miss you, buddy. We gotta sit down for a beer soon and talk about all this shit.”
The war continued, and with all the reserve duty I was doing, Josh was somehow doing twice as much. One time, I told him he was a hero. He responded:
“I’m no hero, brother. Just doing what God called me to do. Miss you, my guy.”
After 748 active reserve days
On Sunday, January 11, Josh’s body was found in Beersheba, where he had been living with his girlfriend. He had only been released from reserve duty a couple of weeks beforehand, having actively fought in the war for 748 days. The weight of it all had simply been too much to carry. I drove down to the police station to meet his girlfriend, Keren; Josh did not have family in Israel, and there was a lot that had to be done. I quickly found that I was not alone.
Josh was not just another lone soldier. He was a central, recognized figure. A symbol that represented both the good and the complex of our community.
There isn’t a lone soldier who didn’t know him at least by name. Most knew him personally, and many viewed him as a big brother.
On that Sunday, I opened a simple “updates” group chat, so friends and people who knew Josh could get information about the funeral and the shiva, and offer help where it was needed.
Within the first few hours, hundreds of people had joined the chat.
Friends, soldiers, trainees, former commanders, donors, nonprofit leaders, instructors from various courses he took, bosses from different jobs he held, Israelis who didn’t speak English and had never heard of Idaho, and foreigners who didn’t speak a word of Hebrew and had never heard of Golani.
By day three, there were 700 participants, flooding the group with photos, videos, old voice notes, memories, thoughts, and feelings. Everyone had a story about Josh. How?
How did a lone soldier from Idaho, who came here alone and didn’t know a single person in this country, manage to impact so many people? Touch so many lives?
Manage to make so many people feel like each was his close friend (and they truly were)?
I honestly don’t know the answer.
Last Monday night, I got a phone call from a mutual friend.
“Hey man, I’m going to the Knesset tomorrow. Do you want to come?”
“Why?” I asked.
“To fight for Josh,” he answered.
Josh hadn’t been buried yet. His family was still trying to get into the country from Idaho, and in the meantime, the State was refusing to recognize Josh as a fallen soldier and give him a military burial. To us, that wasn’t acceptable.
“I’m coming,” I told him.
And fight, we did. We spent days knocking on doors, meeting ministers, joining and speaking in committees, giving interviews, posting online, chanting in the streets – doing everything we could to get Josh the honor we all knew he deserved. Not because of politics. But because of who he was. We knew we were doing our part; it was all up to the Israeli government to do theirs.
I fought for Josh for one main reason: If it were me, I know he would have done the same, and much more.
Josh would have kicked down doors for me, fighting, inside the Knesset or outside on the streets, all day, every day; of that I have no doubt.
And I am far from the only person who feels that way.
Josh educated so many, served with so many, celebrated and laughed with so many, assisted so many, and protected so many.
Every single person who approached Josh – even if Josh didn’t know them – received a smile, a badass war story, some advice, and a lasting impression that somehow stayed with them forever.
That was Josh.
All he wanted, in the end, was to love and connect with all of us, and even more than that – to protect all of us.
And what’s truly heartbreaking to those 700+ people today – and many more– is that we weren’t able to protect him.
We, and our country, failed in our mission to protect and take care of someone who protected and took care of so many.
Today, Thursday, January 15, I buried Josh Boone, my friend and a hero of the Jewish nation. I buried him with all of the amazing people he chose to surround himself with; the people who fought, and will continue to fight for his honor. There was no official military delegation that saluted him. But we did.
Josh is buried at a civilian cemetery in Beersheba, and I pray that his soul is at rest.
What I do know is that he would be proud of us, and ecstatic about the number of people he’s brought together; the family that he’s built. I know that we are proud of him.
The writer is an IDF Reserve Paratrooper and former lone soldier. He has fought on multiple fronts in the current war, including Kfar Aza on October 7, southern Gaza, and Lebanon. He is a proud husband and father.