After hundreds of days of military service, Israeli reservists who lost their jobs or businesses are finding new hope through a global mentorship network connecting them with professionals eager to help.
By Atara Beck
Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israelis and friends of the Jewish state have been making herculean efforts to support the war effort and assist the hundreds of thousands of IDF soldiers and reservists and their families.
Efforts range from providing meals to soldiers, providing hands-on assistance to their families, volunteering in agricultural communities where Palestinian workers from Gaza and Judea and Samaria are no longer employed, packing and distributing humanitarian aid, performing noncombat tasks on army bases, participating in local rebuilding projects in affected northern and southern communities, and more.
Due to the ongoing war, thousands of reservists have spent most of the past three years in the military, and, as a result, many have lost their businesses or become unemployed.
David’s Men Network, a mentorship and leadership organization founded by Rebecca Rossman-Clemans, offers an inventive approach to helping reservists whose livelihoods were upended by the war rebuild their futures.
Its core focus is building bridges between international mentors and English-speaking reservists, fostering career and leadership connections.
Rossman-Clemans made Aliyah with her husband and seven children six weeks before Oct. 7, 2023. She immediately jumped into the war effort by feeding hundreds of soldiers with her family, volunteering at the Gaza border on a weekly basis, and volunteering with Sar-El, a nonprofit organization that brings civilian volunteers from around the world to work on IDF rear bases.
Through those initiatives, she saw that combat reservists needed help with their businesses, while a large group of professionals abroad were eager to help if they knew how.
The inspiration to create the network went back to her upbringing in commercial land development in the Midwest. Her father had “come from nothing and built a legacy with his business,” and she grew up watching him mentor others who didn’t have those connections and resources.
Knowing the value of that mentorship firsthand and realizing there were amazing professionals abroad like her father who would happily do the same, she launched David’s Men Network in 2025.
Today, the program has more than 45 mentors all over the world and about 75 soldiers.
Rossman-Clemans built the network step by step through peer recommendations and speaking to communities and Jewish federations in the U.S.
“The mentors’ input and their care for the soldiers are really amazing. They often develop very close relationships,” she explained last week at a festive barbecue dinner, complete with music and mingling, at the home of Michael Gerbitz, founder and director of United with Israel.
“I always ask mentors to refer one more mentor as good as themselves,” she added, because there are so many soldiers in need of one.
Acknowledging the success of David’s Men, she also noted the good fortune that often comes along. At one event with 70 attendees, the only person interested in the energy field happened to sit down right across from the perfect contact.
Another reservist in the music industry sat next to a veteran musician he had never met, “getting a connection that meant the world to him.”
She described several more “perfect matches,” adding that “God sends them all.”
‘It’s having someone there in your corner’
The reservists who attended the event at the Gerbitz home had completed between 300 and 800 days of military service since Oct. 7. Yaakov Zimmerman, 32, told UWI that he served for 800 days – over two years – and was struggling to keep up with his boutique winery in the biblical city of Shiloh in Samaria, Zimmerman Wines, which he established in 2019, two years after making Aliyah from the U.S.
“My business was suffering,” Zimmerman, who is married and the father of a 7-month-old, told UWI. “I’m basically a one-man show.”
During the most lucrative times of the year for selling wine, such as Purim and Passover, as well as special occasions, he was in the reserves.
However, a mentor “helped me to delegate tasks, structure the business and become more successful. He built me a website, helped me create new labels and helped in so many ways.
“It’s not just the fact that he helped me specifically. Yes, he helped me specifically, but it’s having someone there in your corner who can listen, who can give you support and advice.”
Bricks Investment & Mortgage Ltd., based in Rehovot, Israel, is an established private real estate and financial consulting firm owned and managed by Ofer Elad.
Elad, 60, a major in the IDF’s 98th Paratroopers Division, was recently discharged. He had been involved with another organization, Gav Lalochem (“Back for the Fighter”), which helps discharged IDF combat soldiers transition smoothly into civilian life.
Elad is now focused on reviving his business, which he said is “just like starting a new business.”
He was advised to join David’s Men. “I’m probably the oldest soldier in the group,” he said.
Elad is married and has four children; the youngest was only 2 on Oct. 7. “I barely saw him for three years.”
‘The very least we can do’
“One day they’re fathers, husbands, businessmen and professionals working to build their futures and support their families. The next, they’re warriors on the battlefield, risking their lives to defend Israel,” Gerbitz said.
“IDF reservists live two very different lives, often at enormous personal cost. You can’t just walk away from a job or business for months at a time and expect to pick up where you left off. Beyond the financial hardship, there’s the tremendous strain on their families and the emotional toll of military service. Some also suffer from PTSD, which can have devastating consequences for them and their loved ones.
“We must recognize and appreciate the extraordinary sacrifices these men make for all of us. That’s why I feel so strongly about the work Rebecca is doing through David’s Men Network. Supporting these reservists and their families isn’t simply an act of kindness — it’s a responsibility. They’ve given so much for us, and standing behind them is the very least we can do.”
The dinner at Gerbitz’s home was catered by Jonny Bloom of Grills of Hope, which to date has prepared more than 750 barbecues for more than 120,000 IDF soldiers since Oct. 7.
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