JERUSALEM — Every Jewish mother worries whether her son has enough to eat, especially when he’s serving in the army. One particular mother, with the help of caring strangers, decided to do something to feed her son and the 35 hungry comrades in arms serving with him in Nablus, in the West Bank.
St.-Sgt. Ari Weiss, 21, a member of a Nahal unit currently stationed in a house in downtown Nablus, is a good soldier and a good son, who calls his mom every week and certainly before and after every holiday.
So when he called his mother, Susie, in Ra’anana after Rosh Hashanah to relate his holiday experience, he told of his 25-hour stakeout the first night and day, and the second day spent praying and sleeping.
“He said he could only take with him for the stakeout what he could put in his pocket, so he took a challah, a bag of candy and a machzor,” a holiday prayerbook, said Susie Weiss. “He said everything worked out well, but all I kept hearing is, ‘We’re starving, we’re starving.'”
She asked what she could do, but Ari said there was nothing to do.
“I had one more question: How many are you? He said 35, and with that I hung up.”
Susie took off down Rehov Ahuza, the main drag in Ra’anana, wondering what to do. She came upon Kippa Aduma, the shwarma hangout she knows Ari loves.
“I went to the manager of the store, Roni, and said, ‘My son is in Nablus. He’s stuck in some hellhole with no fridge, and he’s hungry.’ He interrupted my sentence and asked the same question I did: ‘How many are there?’ I told him 35, and he said, ‘What time do you need it?'”
After arranging for the pickup, Susie wandered into a wholesale grocery and thought, Why not?
“I gave him the shpiel, and he said, ‘What do you want from me?’ I looked around and I saw candies and chocolate, but I thought they would melt. Then I saw a case of drinks. He said, ‘How many do you need?’ I said two, and he gave me 80 drinks.”
Feeling empowered, Susie continued down the street and walked into Balkan Bakery.
“I started giving the shpiel, and he, too, interrupted me and said, ‘We close at 8, be here at 7:30 and I’ll give you everything I have left.'”
Amazed at the spur-of-the moment CARE package she found herself organizing, Susie ambled farther down the street and into Meatland, a frozen meat and condiments grocery store.
“I gave the same shpiel, though this time in English because they are South African. I said how about some cookies, and he said, ‘OK, three cases.’ I said they don’t need so much, and he said, ‘Each soldier needs his own.’
It all took a half-hour.
“Everyone made it so easy,” said Susie. “I was gratified, it was a warm feeling. Israelis are always put down as being rude, and here I didn’t even have to finish my request in my lame language, and they already understood what I wanted to say and were asking, ‘How many.’ And they didn’t know me from a hole in the wall.”
Later in the day she took her younger children to Roladin, a bakery in Kadima, which gives tours of the facility.
“As they served cookies and cakes to the kids, I said to the girls behind the counter, ‘You don’t happen to have any extra stuff I can take to my soldier tonight?’ And she said, ‘Wait right here.’ Five minutes later she comes out with 15 individual honey cakes, with signs decorating the top saying, “l’chayal tzavah, shanah tovah.”
Chatting with girlfriends during the day, Susie told them what was happening, and when she got home there were more bags of goodies left by the friends, “who by the way thanked me for the opportunity to do this.”
There was one more thing to figure out: coordinating delivery to the soldiers required a military maneuver. Susie spoke to Ari, who said he was a half-hour from Ariel, and that if she could get the food there between 11 p.m. and midnight, he would take care of the rest.
“I told the head of my unit that my mother is getting us some food, and maybe someone can go to Ariel and she’ll bring us food there,” said Ari.
An armored jeep drove from downtown Nablus to the temporary base outside town, and there a driver took the unit’s car and coordinated with Ari’s sister, Penina. The two of them pulled into the gas station outside Ariel at the same time.
“The driver freaked out; he though he was picking up a couple of bags of shwarma,” said Susie. “He drove back to the base, switched the stuff to the jeep, and then drove to the middle of Nablus to their house, where a couple of guys in full gear unloaded and brought it in.
“An hour later I got a phone call from Ari, with peals of laughter and screaming in the background. Not only was he king of the day, but I have 34 new boyfriends,” she said laughing. “Soldiers were grabbing the phone saying, ‘Geveret Weiss, at lo yada’at ma at aseet lanu.'” (Mrs. Weiss, you have no idea what you have done for us.)
“Everyone loved my mom, everyone was really thankful and gobbled it up,” Ari said. “We didn’t even eat it all; there’s still some cake, pastries and drinks left over…I saw how my mother had organized it, and that meant more than the food itself.”
For Susie, it was all about being a Jewish mother. “My goal was for them to have enough to last through Yom Kippur,” she said.
Mission accomplished.