Israeli Lone Soldier Adam Berman admits that it was a “rough summer.”
Berman, 24, made aliyah a year ago from Columbus, Ohio, serves at the Erez Crossing between Israel and Gaza and lives on Kibbutz Alumim, also located on the Gaza border. So he did not escape this summer’s constant barrage on southern Israel before and during the 50-day Operation Protective Edge which ended on Aug. 26.
When he and 219 other Lone Soldiers were offered free tickets to Lady Gaga’s Tel Aviv concert earlier this week he jumped at the chance.
“For us soldiers it was a sign of the return to normal life and a chance to do things on the weekend again,” he told JTA. The tickets for Saturday night’s concert were provided by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and distributed through organizations such as Garin Tzabar, Hillel and the Michael Levin Lone Soldier Center.
Lynn Schusterman, of Oklahoma, also attended the concert alongside the soldiers to show her appreciation to Lady Gaga for sticking by Israel despite the myriad of artists who cancelled their summer concerts due to the war and pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Clearly, the Gaga-Israel relationship is far less tortured than the Gaza-Israel one.
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