26 | JANUARY 11 • 2024 J N O ne night in early December 2023, Yaffa Magier, a Lone Soldier from Southfield, stepped off a bus at her army base and saw a red cloth lined with rocks on the desert ground. Momentarily confused, she then caught a glimpse of her boyfriend holding flowers and a ring. As her fellow soldiers began to cheer, Jonah Peterson dropped to one knee and proposed. Both Jonah and Yaffa grew up in Southfield and attended Farber Hebrew Day School (Jonah was three grades above Yaffa). They were good friends while growing up. They start- ed dating in 2018, but with Jonah in Israel and Yaffa still in high school, the two found the long-distance relationship too challenging and broke up. JONAH’S IDF JOURNEY “In 2018, I went to Yeshivah Neve Tzion, outside Jerusalem, and fell in love with Israel. I felt like I was at home. I’ d never felt this way before, ” Jonah said. “When I saw soldiers in the street, I wanted to do the same thing. ” He enlisted in the IDF in March 2019. After training, he drafted into a combat intelli- gence unit. He also successfully completed a commander’s course and was a commander of new enrollees in basic training for eight months. “Those were the best eight months of my life, ” Jonah said. “I learned so much about myself. I learned how to be a leader. ” His service officially ended December 2021, after which he worked for the Ministry of Finance in the security wing. That summer, he went back to Michigan to be a Tamarack camp counselor. (“My mom went to Tamarack; my grandma went; it’s a family thing!”) At the end of the summer, Jonah returned to Israel and was recruited into Magav, a national border patrol unit. When the war broke out on Oct. 7, Jonah’s unit was among the first to be deployed. “I woke up on Shabbat at 7 a.m.; by 7:15, I was out the door and on my way to the south, ” Jonah said. For the next two months, his unit went house to house and were the first to see the horror that Hamas had inflicted. They were tasked with finding and arresting terrorists who were hiding in the different yishuvim (neighborhoods). When asked how he han- dled seeing so many disturb- ing scenes, Jonah answered, “It wasn’t easy, but I had my brothers with me. We all saw it together; we all dealt with it together, and we knew we just had to keep moving forward in order to protect our great nation. Knowing that we had important work to do, and it needed to get done was my motivator. ” YAFFA’S IDF JOURNEY In 2019, Yaffa attended Midreshet Tehilla in Jerusalem. COVID broke out mid-year, and she felt like she’ d missed out on some of that trademark Israel experience. “I went back to Michigan, already knowing I wanted to live in Israel, ” Yaffa said. She returned in 2021, worked as a madricha at Bar-Ilan University, and officially made aliyah in 2022. “I decided that if I was a citi- zen of the country, then I should also serve, be part of the culture and give back, ” Yaffa explained. She drafted into the IDF in May 2023 and joined the same combat intelligence unit Jonah had been in just a few years before. She also became a sharp- shooter. “We deal with intelligence in the fields, navigations, under- standing and knowing our sur- roundings. We’re the eyes for the other units, ” Yaffa said. “It’s been an adventure!” When the war broke out, she was still in training, which was accelerated. Yaffa finishes her training in less than one month, then her unit will be sent to the Syrian border for the remainder of their service. THE LOVE STORY Two years after they’ d broken up, Yaffa and Jonah were in the same country. The time was ripe, and they reconnected. “I knew how much I’ d missed Yaffa and how much she means to me. We dated for another two years and I quickly realized Yaffa A Detroit-Israel Love Story OUR COMMUNITY Two Lone Soldiers from Southfi eld come together in Israel during war. ROCHEL BURSTYN CONTRIBUTING WRITER She said yes! Yaffa and Jonah at the surprise proposal on her base.