Though friends and family questioned his decision, Fischer felt sure. “My grandparents survived the holocaust, moved to Israel then moved to the U.S. as immigrants. I was becoming a part of my story, tying the land and language back,” he said. 

Things changed once he put on his own pair of olive green uniforms. In Scarsdale, New York, enlisting was a way of becoming a part of the Jewish people. But in the settlement of Beit El, just outside of Ramallah, Fischer sat at his computer, deciding whether to approve or deny Palestinians access to work.

“There’s a strong Hasbara campaign,” he said, reflecting on the propaganda he consumed as a teen. “It’s easy to imagine yourself doing important and ethical work.

Following his service, he gave a testimony to Breaking the Silence, an Israeli organization that allows veterans to confidentially recount their experiences in the Occupied Territories. “I’m still grappling with the experience of being associated with the crimes being committed,” he said. The only silver lining is that now I have legitimacy to talk about what’s being done.”

At any given time, approximately 3,500 international Jewish soldiers serve in the IDF, 1,200 of them from the United States. And while many leave in search of belonging, or due to struggles achieving middle-class goals in America according to a recent study, some return with doubts about their experiences. Unsure of their place in Israeli society, or uneasy about their role in supporting the occupation, many American IDF veterans spend the years following their service reconciling their Zionist upbringing with realities on the ground. 

At the 100-year celebration of Hashomer Hatzair youth movement, a labor Zionist, socialist youth movement, dozens of veteran members entered the Peterson House in lower Manhattan. In their 60s and 70s, they reminisced over their early days in the movement, colored by a pro-peace optimism of the time.

“Remember when we made sandwiches at Woodstock?” asked Efrat Levy, 70, the chair of the board of directors. A roar of laughter followed. She joined the movement when she was only eight years old, at a time when Israel, for many Jews, was a project of hope and reparations.

When Roni Ziv, 24, joined the movement, she was in the fourth grade. Historically founded to help Jewish youth immigrate to Palestine and build new kibbutzim, it has reinvented itself in recent decades to help connect Jewish-American youth to Israel. And from a young age, Ziv was immersed in discussions about self-actualization and justice work in Israel.

“It’s been one of the biggest influences in my life,” she said. “The things that I think and care about are all from the movement.” 

It was only in her final year in the movement that Ziv learned firsthand about the occupation of Palestinians and inequalities among minority groups like Ethiopian Jews, Palestinian citizens of Israel and Mizrahi Jews.

“It shocked me,” she said. “I was never really exposed to the complexity as much as I was then, all at once.” 

At first, she was angry. Years of idealization burst in an instant, leaving her confused about her role and understanding of a place she learned to care about over the years. “I was mad at my parents for leaving and not wanting to stay and fight for this place,” she said. 

But Ziv felt that she could be the change. So, after high school, she joined Mechinat Rabin, a pre-military program that facilitates volunteer work in different Jewish communities throughout Israel. On the ground, she could turn her ideology into action. “Instead of talking about something that was going on, we could actually go out and protest it,” she said. “It was really fulfilling.”

In 2018, she joined the IDF through Garin Tzabar, an international program that facilitates the enlistment of Jewish youth from abroad into the army. During her training, she wanted to work with young soliders who don’t have parental support or supervision. She ended up in a conversion program, assisting immigrants that aren’t recognized as Jewish go through an expedited conversion. 

Though she found the work rewarding, she struggled to remain hopeful about her ability to drive meaningful change. “I was naive and idealistic,” she said. “I thought I could change people’s lives.”

Thousands of Jews enlist in the military with the help of programs like Garin Tzabar. But Yair Ran, the program’s director, said that in the last three years, there has been a 20 percent decrease in enlistment from the United States, while enlistment from countries like France, where antisemitism has become a more prominent issue, has been rising.

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Though international soldiers often burden the military, which has to offer them specialized language and cultural training, Ran explained that it is worth the costs. Many decide to remain in Israel, a decision their families often follow, Ran explained. Those who decide to go back, he added, become agents of Hasbara, or pro-Israel propaganda, and donate generously. “Israel is in their heart,” Ran explained.

When Jacob Ellis decided to enlist, he was only 19. Four years earlier, he had moved from his thriving Jewish community in Miami to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he was one of few Jews. “It was the first place where I experienced blatant antisemitism, teachers making anti semitic comments about me in class, students throwing change at me,” he said.

During his junior year of high school, Ellis went to Israel as part of a Jewish history class. After months of learning about biblical tales and spending two weeks in concentration camps in Poland, he arrived in Tel Aviv. “It was such an engaging way to learn,” he said. “Being in this new place with eight teenagers, just having a good time.” It took a few months for him to come to the decision to immigrate to Israel. Neither of his parents had ever visited the country, but Ellis was prepared to serve.

“I wanted to be Israeli,” he said. “And to be Israeli means to be in the army,” he explained

 In 2012, Ellis began his service as an infantry solider in the Nahal brigade. He was stationed in Za’tara junction, nine kilometers south of Nablus. For eight months, he and his unit patrolled the area, carrying out arrests, stopping cars and operating local checkpoints. One day, he saw a video of fellow soldier beating a hooded Palestinian man, tied at the wrists. The soldier was never held accountable. “It was scary to see that nothing really happened to him,” Ellis said. He was shaken but put the event aside. “That was one bad apple,” he thought.

But on a warm July night, in the lead-up to the 2014 Gaza war, Ellis participated in a large arrest near Nablus. Ellis took part in a major arrest operation near Nablus. As part of his mission, Ellis' unit entered a family home in the dead of night, and he and his partner were tasked with searching the children's room. As he woke up the three-year-old child from his slumber, Ellis couldn't help but notice a faded SpongeBob poster hanging on the wall.

“I was thinking about how this child is feeling. These people with weapons coming into their house and being assertive with the family. And they don’t know what’s happening,” he said. “This is just a child who likes to watch SpongeBob, and I was also a child who liked to watch SpongeBob.

When the war began, Ellis was sent home for vacation. He came back to half of his unit. The rest had died in the war. “I was focused on getting through it,” he said. “Even after the army, I avoided processing it all.”

It took Ellis years to come to terms with his involvement and contribution to the occupation. Only on a trip to the Palestinian territories later in life, he realized the full extent of what he was involved in.

 “Growing up, I thought of the military as highly trained, highly skilled group of people that are doing something noble,” he said. “But really, it’s just a bunch of kids who don’t know any better.”

Disillusioned by his view of Israel growing up, Ellis refuses to visit the country. “I’m uncomfortable actively benefiting from Zionism and the oppression of Palestinians,” he said. “I don’t want to compromise my values anymore.”