Israel’s war with Iran has turned resilience from an abstract national identity into a daily practice. We measure it in several ways: how quickly people reach shelter, how well hospitals and schools continue to function, and how steadily reserve units rotate back to their posts.
But resilience is also built in quieter places, including the human networks that catch people when they are exhausted, overwhelmed, or alone.
Lone soldiers, those serving in the IDF without immediate family support in Israel, carry the same operational burden as everyone else, while missing the basic buffer most soldiers rely on when they step off base: a bustling home, a family kitchen, and loved ones who notice when something is off. When bases empty out for the weekend, many lone soldiers return to silence. In a period of sustained war and crisis, the absence of community becomes more than a hardship: It becomes a vulnerability.
Housing is often discussed as a practical need, but it is so much more than just a room or an apartment. Housing that functions as a home is the platform on which stability, recovery, and belonging are built, and belonging is the protective layer Israel depends on when life is under strain.
The hidden burden lone soldiers carry off base
Military service is demanding for any young adult. For lone soldiers, the burden is heavier in ways that do not show up on the training schedule: cultural and language gaps, bureaucracy, financial strain – as well as the relentless logistics of daily life, including rent, contracts, and repairs, which can all become compressed into the few hours they are home.
The IDF provides important assistance and benefits, including a rent subsidy. But through years of our work, the Lone Soldier Center (LSC) has come to understand that providing a “home base” is one of the most multifaceted and critical needs we can fill to supplement IDF assistance.
The Lone Soldier Center in Memory of Michael Levin currently operates six homes for such soldiers. Some are separate for combat soldiers, some are separate for men and women, and others are specifically for Israeli lone soldiers (as opposed to immigrant lone soldiers). In Jerusalem, Herzliya, and Petah Tikva, these provide a home in every sense for more than 130 lone soldiers, soon to be more, as we open an additional home in Tel Aviv this April.
These homes provide lone soldiers with a broad support system that includes safe and comfortable accommodations, a supportive social community, personal guidance from a professional team, ongoing contact with soldiers’ commanders and IDF welfare officials, emotional care and professional support, and assistance with basic needs: food, daily essentials, laundry, etc.
Stable housing is important for soldiers' well-being
It is more than a place to sleep; it is a place where soldiers feel they belong, are supported, and are surrounded by people who understand them.
Israel understands force multipliers: Stable housing is one of them.
A soldier who sleeps properly and eats well returns to duty sharper.
A soldier not forced to spend limited time off on bills, repairs, and basic logistics preserves energy for training and missions.
A soldier with a consistent place to decompress is less likely to slide into burnout, disengagement, or risky coping behaviors.
But the deeper value of housing, especially for lone soldiers, is what happens around the apartment: the community that forms when soldiers live together, share Shabbat meals, and build routines that resemble family life.
Those relationships don’t disappear when the soldier returns to base on Sunday, or when their service ends and they need to transition to civilian life. Over time, the people they live with and near become a support system soldiers can lean on without asking for permission.
This is also why our housing programs are structured as communities. Lone soldiers need access to the same infrastructure of belonging that is the secret to the whole country’s survival - leaning on community.
It takes one to know one
What makes the organization’s homes unique is that they are all managed and guided by former lone soldiers, people who have personally experienced the challenges and loneliness of serving in Israel without close family. They have a real understanding of their needs and offer personal guidance rooted in shared life experience.
The strongest argument for housing is the stability it brings to a soldier’s nervous system.
Decades of evidence in trauma and chronic stress research consistently point to the importance of social support as a protective factor. For lone soldiers, support can be the difference between spending Shabbat alone and spending it with people who understand their service, their stress, and their distance from family.
Most critically, community-based housing creates early warning systems. When someone withdraws, stops eating, starts skipping routines, or begins to unravel, peers notice. Staff and mentors who are present and trained can help a soldier navigate bureaucracy and language barriers, yes, but can also catch signs of pressure and small problems long before they become crises.
“G.” was an immigrant soldier from the US and a paratrooper combat soldier. He lived in one of the LSC’s Jerusalem homes. After about a year of service and fighting in Gaza, his mental state deteriorated, and it was decided to discharge him from the IDF on mental-health grounds. The soldier struggled to understand the implications of the discharge and the rights he was entitled to. A coordinator met with him, explained his rights in full, and supported him in coping with his family abroad. The support was there to help him transition back to his family so he could continue a successful, thriving life.
“A.” is a soldier born and raised in Israel who left the ultra-Orthodox community and currently serves in the armored corps. He has been living in a lone soldier home for about a year. He arrived with a complex family background that included domestic violence and significant social difficulties. “A” received staff support from the moment he arrived, including matching him with weekly emotional therapy sessions and providing him with a computer that enabled him to continue sessions even while on base.
The organization’s soldier coordinator maintains ongoing contact with him and his army commanders to ensure he receives the support he needs within his service framework. Without all of this, it is highly unlikely he would have been able to continue serving as a combat soldier.
Support during – and after – service
A Times of Israel blog post recently argued that Israel isn’t truly seeing lone soldiers after discharge: support frameworks may exist while they are in uniform, but the “day after” can feel like a cliff. While the writer’s points resonate because it describes a real vulnerability, he does not yet know that the issue is being addressed and is not (yet) familiar with our policy of working with lone soldiers for five years, not the duration of their service, for precisely these reasons.
When lone soldiers live together, many of those relationships last. They remain friends, roommates, and support networks. They keep coming back for Shabbat meals, for guidance, for connection. They remain part of what many describe as the LSC “family,” a circle that includes counselors, staff, mentors, and peers who are critical for building a long-term life and home in Israel.
Wartime
Israel rightly honors lone soldiers as people who chose responsibility without the comfort of proximity to home. But the moral contract requires more than gratitude. If a young person commits to defending the country, sometimes at serious physical and emotional cost, then the rest of us have an obligation to ensure they are not left alone to manage the basics of life, especially in wartime.
In wartime, the tempo increases. The exhaustion compounds. The margin for coping shrinks. The basic needs of life, food, sleep, and a functioning home, become directly connected to readiness.
Resilience is not only what happens on the front lines: It is also what happens on a Friday afternoon, when the base empties out; it’s what happens on Purim eve when we read the megillah in bomb shelters. We get through periods of war and disruption like this one through the power of community, including every soldier.
Soldiers come to the IDF from all over the world, and the young people who choose to serve as combat soldiers without close family here to support them day to day are our collective responsibility.
At home, they find a community of lifelong friends, a listening ear, and care for their most basic needs – from food and daily essentials to a sense of security and stability. Knowing they have a place to return to and people who genuinely care about them allows them to focus on their mission during their military service. Which is our honor – and our duty – to provide.
The writer is CEO of the Lone Soldier Center in Memory of Michael Levin. She served for 30 years in the IDF in senior positions before beginning to work at LSC nine years ago.