At just 21 years old, Ira Kohler left his home in Plainview, Long Island, moved to Israel and enlisted in the IDF’s elite Paratrooper Brigade as a Lone Soldier. Less than two years later, he found himself on the front lines of Oct. 7th—engaged in face-to-face combat with Hamas terrorists, witnessing the massacre at Kibbutz Be’eri and surviving a rocket strike on his helicopter mid-flight. He would go on to serve more than 100 days in Gaza.  

On this episode of the Conversations with B’nai B’rith Podcast, CEO Dan Mariaschin sits down with Kohler, author of “Once a Paratrooper: The Story of a Lone Soldier in the Gaza War”—an unflinching, on-the-ground account of what it means to serve, to sacrifice and to grapple with questions of identity and responsibility in a time of crisis.  

Kohler also reflects on the loss of his close friend Omer Neutra—a fellow Long Island native killed on Oct. 7, whose body was taken into Gaza by Hamas—and what it means to carry that story alongside his own.  

Watch this episode on the B’nai B’rith International YouTube channel. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @bnaibrith. Follow us on the B’nai B’rith International Facebook page. Follow us on Twitter/X at @bnaibrith.

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