JNS
“Jews in America pitched in and donated so we could do our job,” IDF reservist Chaim Meisels told “The Daily Wire.”
One of the drones that aided in the assassination of former Hamas senior leader Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip was donated with help from a Jewish community in New Jersey.
Chaim Meisels, an American reservist in the Israeli Defense Forces, told The Daily Wire that after being honored as a guest at a synagogue in Teaneck, N.J., a family hosting him asked how they could assist in the war effort. He said that his unit would benefit from more equipment, including drones.
Following the Hamas terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Meisels said that the nearly 300,000 reservists who flew to Israel to fight found that the IDF did not have helmets, vests or equipment for them.
“Jews in America pitched in and donated so we could do our job,” he said to The Daily Wire.
A member of the Teaneck community named Lindsay (who requested her last name be withheld) organized the fundraising. The donations, which ultimately totaled approximately $10,000, came from members of her synagogue, the rabbi’s discretionary fund and a few donors from another state.
“Oct. 7 wasn’t an attack just on Israel. It was an attack on Jews all over,” Meisels said. “So they wanted to help.”
Lindsay and her family purchased the drones in May and provided them to Meisels, who said they were fully operational in Gaza by June.
One of them—a DJI Mavic equipped with thermal imaging—helped Meisels’ unit, the 828th Bislamach Brigade, pinpoint Sinwar’s location.
“The excitement we all felt when we heard Sinwar was dead and that the drone we donated helped locate him was unreal,” Lindsay told The Daily Wire.
