Reflections from Israel: An Interview with Mike Ross

On March 19, our Federation is hosting Mission to Israel: Local Perspectives. We will hear the experiences of several community members who went on recent solidarity mission trips to Israel. One of our featured speakers is Dr. Mike Ross, a retired neuroradiologist. We asked him a few questions about his experience traveling with American Healthcare Professionals and Friends for Medicine in Israel. (Photo credits: Mike Ross)

Q: Why did you decide to travel to Israel at this time?

I was looking for an opportunity to go to Israel to show my solidarity with what they have been suffering through. Most importantly sensing apartness from the everyday lives of non-Jewish Americans, I had a strong desire in my soul to be in communion with fellow Jews. I wanted to feel a part of their commitment to each other and to their determination to meet the present challenge united, even as they were still recovering from their shock and grief. I wanted to bear witness and to be able to better understand the situation, such that I could represent their feelings here. 

Furthermore, feeling horrified, frightened and generally in a terrible funk since the October 7 atrocities and appalled at the outburst of anti-Jewish venom around the world since that infamous day, I knew going to Israel would lift my spirits. 

Q: What was one memorable experience you had on this mission trip?

Spending time, and particularly Shabbat, with my adopted family in Petah Tikvah. They are remarkable for their kindness to me, as well as for their devotion to each other, to their values, to Israel and to the Jewish people. To me they represent the typical Israeli spirit.

Mike Ross (center) with his “adopted Israeli family” in Petah Tikvah.

They have many close relatives on the front lines and unease about their safety is never far from their minds. They send their loved ones out to battle; not to win land or glory or due to hatred and a need for vengeance. They are resigned to what needs to be done to ensure that Israel survives.  And the soldiers in return, are fighting first and foremost to protect their loved ones back home. A phone conversation to a loved one in the army is extremely precious to them.

They showed me a video of their relative in the reserves, who was providing covering fire from an armored vehicle to protect his mates. He seemed so powerful and gung-ho. They then told me he suffers from PTSD after watching his fiancé die in his arms due to a tragic motor vehicle accident years ago. He is a gentle person with sympathetic, soulful eyes who became a psychologist treating children with special needs in his civilian career. He is the farthest one could be from a “Rambo” type character. The IDF is filled with such men and women leaving their families, schools and jobs, when called to duty.

Thus, I felt incredibly privileged to experience what it is like for a homefront family during a time of war in Israel, with the people most dear to them away from home, fighting to defend their very existence.

The plaza at the Western Wall during a swearing-in ceremony for IDF soldiers.

Q: What is one thing you want people to understand about the conditions in Israel right now?

Despite the famously rancorous partisan Israeli body politic, they are now extremely united regarding the need to see this war to a successful completion with the elimination of Hamas as an everyday threat, for a very long time. Absent a conclusive defeat of Hamas, and other related enemies, there is a real concern that the future of Israel as a flourishing state will be put in jeopardy.

Their courage and devotion to protecting their fellow Israelis and the well-being of the Jewish people is inspirational. They are fighting an unasked for defensive war which they rightly believe is also on behalf of our treasured civilization and its liberal values. They live lives of purpose to these ends, which gives them a tremendous sense of meaning and, dare I say, fulfillment. They covet resilience and self-agency and are an exemplary people for the world to emulate.

 CLICK HERE to register for “Mission to Israel: Local Perspectives.”