Hen, on duty as an Israeli soldier (top photo), horses around with fellow soldier Shai (bottom photo, in jacket) before a talk last week at Google headquarters in Mountain View. The two were taking part in StandWithUs’ fifth annual “Israeli Soldiers’ Stories” tour, which included several stops in Northern California. The reserve soldiers talked about their personal experiences in the Israeli army and made points about the Israeli-Arab conflict. For security reasons, StandWithUs doesn’t release the soldiers’ last names. Hen, who served as a liaison officer in the West Bank, and Shai, a member of the elite Givati Brigade during the second intifada, spoke to 30 people at Google on Feb. 22 and took a campus tour, which included a jaunt on a Google bicycle. They also spoke at Chabad of Stanford, Temple Beth Abraham (Oakland), Hillel of Silicon Valley, U.C. Berkeley, Lisa Kampner Hebrew Academy (San Francisco), Congregation Emek Bracha (Palo Alto) and at a church in Concord before continuing north to Davis, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest.

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