A few months after the Israel-Hamas War began, I was sitting on the train from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. A man, trying to get himself and his luggage into a position that would prevent either of them from being mercilessly knocked around, asked if I spoke any English.
Yes? Great! Was this the right train to Ben-Gurion Airport? It was? Wonderful! Would I mind telling him where to get off?
During the ride, this man from Kentucky, a Mr. Smith, or Williams, or Johnson, or some other name I wish I could recall, began sharing why he was in Israel during wartime.
Left as an infant in a basket on someone’s doorstep, he was raised as an Evangelical. Over the years, he discovered that he was, in fact, related to the people who cared for him, and that one of his biological parents was Jewish, possibly his mother.
War or not, he was on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Israel to discover who he was and reconnect with his roots, both for his sake and for his children’s and grandchildren’s.
The sparkle in his eye, the sheer joy emanating from someone so foreign yet so familiar, and the look on his face as he described the Jewish state through his perspective were inspiring.
“Come visit us in Kentucky. We’re an awfully hospitable clan!” he urged, right before getting off at his stop, luggage and person intact.
The encounter had me wishing that I could have interviewed him properly. It also got me thinking that there must be many remarkable stories out there just waiting to be told.
So I posted about this encounter on social media, asking if anyone knew who this man was, adding that if someone had come to Israel because of the war, I would love to write about it. My hope was to find the man from Kentucky (I have not, yet), but more so, to locate more stories like this.
Many people responded. Little did I know that the first person who did would point me down one fantastical rabbit hole.
Faith over fear
“My connection with Israel started in 2017,” said Debbie Winsett, an eloquent, 62-year-old project manager from California.
While planning a vacation together, she and a good friend had both put Israel on their bucket list and decided to travel to the country.
“We’re both Christians, but honestly, I’d never thought about going to Israel before then. My church hadn’t sent a group to Israel in probably 25 years.”
After the visit, Winsett “felt an overwhelming sense of belonging.” She said she then heard God’s voice call to her in her prayers, telling her, “You’re going to take 50 people to Israel in October of 2018.”
She did. Aided by America Israel Tours, Winsett made it her mission to introduce Christians to the Holy Land. Her first endeavor came to fruition in 2018, when she helped organize and bring a group of 50 people on a tour to the Middle East.
Traveler Journeys
To that end, Winsett created a nonprofit foundation and a website called Traveler Journeys.
“It’s transformational for a Christian to be in Israel and understand more thoroughly all the things that we’re learning in our own faith studies,” Winsett said.
Still, she wondered if she was worthy of her undertaking. The trip seemed very important, since it was the participants’ first time in Israel and likely the only time they would experience the country.
“I wondered, am I good enough? Am I capable of giving them the experience they deserve?” she said.It was on the second day of the tour, at Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee), that Winsett’s doubts dissipated. In Christianity, the lake is believed to be the place where Jesus walked on water and performed other miracles.
The group had taken a ferry boat out on the water in the early morning, and Winsett watched as Norris Jernigan, an American World War II veteran, then in his 90s, stood up with the rest of the congregation to dance, sing, contemplate, and pray.
Watching him and the rest coming together in this manner made her emotional. Then the tour guide, whom Winsett didn’t know until two days before when he met her at the airport, and to whom she had barely spoken, walked up to her.
“He had no idea about my history nor who I was,” Winsett recounted, tearing up. “But he reached over and gave me a huge hug and just said: ‘You are enough.’”
She said that she had experienced hardships in her life and that her parents were not always supportive. So when this stranger, who knew nothing about her, did this, she felt like God was talking to her through him. “I felt that God gave him the words,” she said.
This was the turning point for Winsett. She decided that it was her calling not only to expose Christians to Israel but to nurture greater understanding between Christians and Jews, and to support the country itself. For example, she makes sure that the tourists have a traditional Shabbat dinner.
When we spoke, she had already been to Israel 15 times.
But COVID and then the Israel-Hamas War did not make her mission easy.By this time, Winsett had become close to many Israelis and wanted to show her support. “I was just devastated over what was happening,” she said.
Worse yet, “When Oct. 7 happened, 90% of the people who had registered [to tour Israel] canceled,” she reported.People were worried, asking what the flights, food, Middle East turmoil, and overall trip would be like under the circumstances.
“Our motto from the very beginning was ‘faith over fear,’” Winsett stressed. “If you have true faith, it doesn’t matter where you are because God is there with you, and His plan for your life will play out.”
She even told her family and friends that if something were to happen to her, “I’d rather die from it in Israel.”“It was a little disappointing to me that people were giving me a lot of excuses for their cancellations, such as ‘I don’t want to miss my grandchildren growing up,’” she said.
Unfazed by the war, she decided to continue showing solidarity by coming to Israel herself.
Winsett talked about the devastation she observed: Israel’s Gaza border communities were in shambles; shopkeepers she had befriended in Jerusalem’s Old City appeared destitute; and a farmer she had encountered in the North had just lost his chicken coop facilities, which were “blown to smithereens” by a rocket launched from Lebanon.
What she saw instilled greater faith in her, a reinvigorated appreciation of her relatively safe life in the US, and the determination to continue “to support Israel by trying to get tourism back,” despite the war.
In October 2024, Winsett realized this goal and brought a small group to the Holy Land. But this time, she felt that beyond touring, they should contribute to the people of Israel.
Through the Swords of Iron Facebook group, Winsett chose an organization called Israel Support Bridge, based at the Yarkonim junction near Petah Tikva, where they could volunteer. While there, the group spent five hours sorting and packaging clothes and toiletries for evacuees displaced from their homes.
After their trip, the visitors were asked what their most meaningful experience was. It was not the day they had gone to Masada “and learned of the Israelites’ heroism,” only to find out later that the spot where they had been standing was hit by a rocket the very next day, nor was it visiting the places where Jesus walked.
“The highlight of the trip to Israel was volunteering at Israel Support Bridge,” Winsett said.I told her that I was not familiar with the organization. “In that case, you really need to talk to Erez, its deputy CEO,” she replied.
When life stood still
The nonprofit organization Israel Support Bridge was born as a response to the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas, Erez Ginat, the organization’s deputy CEO, said.
“Until Oct. 7, I was running another company. On that day, though, life just stood still,” he recounted.
Images of destruction – burnt homes and cars – filled television screens, together with accounts of people being burned to death. Reports poured in about the Gaza border communities’ survivors descending from buses with nothing left to their names; others told of masses of people being called-up for army duty. Ginat saw this as his opportunity to step forward.
“I have always been someone who wanted to help others. I told myself this was my chance.”
When he joined a WhatsApp group for people looking to volunteer in Israel, someone told him to check out the Israel Support Bridge distribution center.
“I did, and the rest is history,” Ginat said.
Initially, the volunteer-based organization sought donations for supplies, such as clothing, protective gear, and medical aid, after identifying what was most needed and where. It then distributed the equipment to evacuees from the North and South, soldiers, and emergency standby squads, to name a few.
“From the very start, this was a massive operation. We discovered that local authorities were just not equipped to handle the state of emergency the country found itself in. Municipal supply rooms that should have been full, precisely for an event like this, were all empty,” Ginat said.
Detecting severe supply shortages nationwide – from protective gear to medical materials – Israel Support Bridge, spearheaded by its founder, Ben Mamon, enacted a plan to address the issue.
Within the first two weeks of the war, via a network of volunteers, the organization requested, received, sorted, boxed, and distributed large amounts of emergency aid, he said.
“We became experts in logistics, including how to manage bureaucracy,” Ginat added.
According to Israel Support Bridge’s mission statement, by the end of 2024 it dispatched the contents of seven Boeing 747 planes, distributed over $50 million worth of civilian aid, and has a network of more than 10,000 volunteers worldwide, among other achievements.
The outfit kept expanding as Israeli companies, individuals, and families arrived at its warehouses to volunteer. Then people began coming from overseas.
“Birthright, tourists who wanted to show solidarity, and many members from the Jewish Federations of North America showed up. From Hillel International to World Mizrachi, everyone pitched in,” Ginat detailed.
“When all these people stepped up, donating whatever they could wherever they could, a strong sense of ‘togetherness’ emerged. This made me believe that things could be really good here if we could just put aside our differences,” he said.
As for the organization’s vision moving forward, Ginat said: “Given that the reaction to what happened to us as a people on Oct. 7 was a sharp increase in blatant antisemitism, I think it’s safe to say that no one but ourselves will come to our rescue. Also, we don’t want to be caught off guard again without the means critical for our survival.”
The next step is to expand even further. “We want to open interconnected branches around the world with fully stocked warehouses and a network of emergency volunteer response teams at the ready so that we can manage any crisis as efficiently as possible,” he said.
According to Ginat, 20 local municipalities have already signed up for the program, while the organization collaborates with over 160 agencies in Israel and overseas.
Unity, a notion that Ginat felt had almost dissipated, was finally returning. This is what uplifts him, allowing him to forge ahead. “To watch a person like Debbi stand shoulder to shoulder with others from all over the globe and from all walks of life as they work together towards a common, unified goal is incredible to me,” he said.
But there was still something that was not clear to me, I told him.
“You said this nonprofit did not exist prior to Oct. 7. How, within the first two weeks of the war, did it go from being nonexistent to becoming the well-oiled machine you describe?”
I could almost hear Ginat smiling over the phone when he said, “Well, that’s not my story to tell. You will need to talk to our CEO, Ben.”
A son of fortune
By age 40, Israeli-born Ben Mamon had pretty much retired. He had made his fortune in America, where he had gone after completing his army service at age 21.
For the next 20 years, Mamon – whose full name in Hebrew translates as “a son of fortune” – dabbled in various business ventures there, such as opening some 50 spas in hotels across Las Vegas and Miami.“When COVID hit, all my businesses came to a halt. So I redirected my efforts into charity work, like flying face masks into the US,” he said.
Once the crisis ended, Mamon realized he was done with the life he had led prior to it.“I told myself: ‘Nope, that’s it. I’m not going back to all that sh**.’ You see, I really don’t like working. Also, I really don’t like chasing after money.”
He sold everything he owned – cars, businesses, homes – and returned to Israel to retire. Or so he thought.“Then Oct. 7 happened. I had to do something. One of the first things I did was make some phone calls.”
He phoned the army, telling them: “Sign me up.”“Forget about it,” he was told. “You’re too old.”“What do you mean, ‘too old?’” Mamon asked.Their response only fueled his tenacious nature.
The next day – October 8 – Mamon walked into a Hatzi Hinam supermarket in Hod Hasharon and announced that he was buying all the food they had so he could donate it to soldiers.
“That’ll be NIS 60,000,” the cashier said. Mamon didn’t have it. Instead, he grabbed a chair, stood on it, and started shouting. He yelled repeatedly: “I need NIS 60,000 to buy soldiers food!”
What happened next felt like a blur. People surrounded him, shoving money into his hands. Army bases were called to figure out who needed what and where, and passersby stopped to help load boxes into vehicles, drive the food to the soldiers, and offer what services they could.
Mamon was now holding NIS 80,000. Some people stayed with him until nightfall. Like him, they needed to do something. Mamon seemed like the guy who knew what that was.
Word quickly spread about what had happened, so Mamon repeated the process the next day, asking 10 volunteers to each go to a different supermarket. The idea was simple (or so he thought): Collect money, buy food with it, then drive the goods to army bases.
“But then people started telling me: ‘Ben, look at Facebook. There are reports of massive shortages in emergency equipment,’” Mamon said.
He did. “I saw absolute chaos. The government was nowhere to be found. It was glaringly obvious that we were alone.” But that’s when the magic happened, just like it did that first day at the supermarket, he said. Civilians were stepping up, everywhere.
“As for myself, seeing all that mayhem, I knew exactly what I needed to do next. I’m 80% lousy at stuff and 10% okay. I excel at the final 10% of my makeup. It’s that 10% of me who gets what needs doing, done,” Mamon said. He gathered a core network of volunteers, many of whom heard about him via Facebook and WhatsApp groups, like Ginat, and went back to the Hatzi Hinam store.
“Clear out of your offices – I’m taking your whole upstairs floor,” he said, marching in. “I didn’t have a base of operations, see. I needed one.” Apparently, no one objected.
Mamon said he and his team of volunteers have been hard at work ever since. They found storage spaces, researched and organized information regarding supply shortages, and became “experts on the intake and distribution of provisions on a global scale, with an emphasis on collaboration.
“We quickly learned how to handle the bureaucracy. After all, numerous government agencies – the Israel Police, Home Front Command, and the IDF, to name a few – had to get involved almost immediately.
“This was not only because the army was shocked at the level of sensitive information involving military shortages that we, a bunch of civilians, managed to obtain, but also because we had to think really fast on our feet to prevent a diplomatic incident with the US. We didn’t want someone to accidentally turn back the governor of Florida’s planes,” he said.
“Well, there you have it. That’s Israel Support Bridge’s origin story,” he concluded. Or so he thought. “Hold on, sorry,” I said. “What was that about planes?”
Mamon positively grinned. “Yeah, so, remember how I told you that I made several calls on Oct. 7? Well, I reached out to every contact I had worldwide, from China to South Africa. I had to raise awareness regarding what was going on, pull every string I had.”
By the end of that week, a friend from Florida called him back. “Ever hear of Ron DeSantis?” the friend asked Mamon. Yes, he had.
“Good, because the governor of Florida just filled two Boeing 747 planes with emergency aid for Israel and put them in your name. One’s already in the air. Good luck, man.”
And just like that, in the dead of night, dozens of Israeli officials were staring into the insides of a Boeing 747 plane that had been cleared for landing at Ben-Gurion Airport mere hours earlier.
They may have arrived to inspect and aid in the intake process. But it is equally likely that they were primarily there to marvel at one private citizen who, during some of the direst of hours in Israeli history, managed to pull off the unimaginable.
In spite of the war
Like the infant from Kentucky, I feel as though this story was left on my doorstep purposefully, just waiting to be found. And, although none of these people were in Israel because of the war per se, an organization is.
So here’s hoping that this narrative stands as an uplifting testament to human kindness, bravery, resilience, hope, and faith. Do keep these stories coming.
