VIDEO: IDF Soldier ​Implores Foreign Students: ‘Don’​t Go Back Home’

Elisha Levy, an immigrant IDF soldier from Britain, uploaded a video to Facebook in which he implores overseas students in Israel to stay despite the recent wave of Palestinian terrorism.

The video, which has since gone viral with over 53,000 shares, was posted in the wake of the murder of Ezra Schwartz, ​an 18-year-old Boston native who was spending his gap year ​as a volunteer and ​yeshiva ​ student​in Israel before being killed by Palestinian terrorists last Thursday.

According ​ to​the Times of Israel, Levy is a 21-year ​-old ​new immigrant who enlisted ​in a combat unit just under a year ago. 

Levy addresses overseas students in his video. “Don’t go back home,” he ​says. To their parents, he ​adds, “Don’t want your children home, because this is home. And if you keep them here, then you’re winning the battle.”

Levy, who was a yeshiva student himself before joining the IDF, said he was upset to hear the reactions of other gap-year students in Israel following  ​Schwartz’s​ death.

“They were scared and giving up hope. They said they were throwing in the towel and ready to leave Israel,” he said.

Levy insisted that even though he did not know Sch​wartz personally, he is certain that the latter would have wanted his peers to continue ​studying and volunteering in Israel. According to Levy, ​it is American students such as these who give strength to Israel.

“Continue going out and giving the soldiers cakes. I hope [Schwartz] had an idea of what a difference it made to the soldiers, because I can personally tell it changes the day. It makes us so happy,” Levy says in the video.

Schwartz and other volunteers were handing out food to lone soldiers–who do not have immediate family in the country–when ​the van he was riding in was sprayed with bullets ​. 

Towards the end of the video, Levy addresses Schwartz’s parents ​:​

“You had a special son who understood ​what  ​​hessed [the Hebrew term for acts of kindness] was, who understood what the world is and what the world needs,” he says.