Called to serve, determined to succeed: The reservists redefining resilience at Reichman University - Sponsored Content

There is a particular kind of student who has come to define this era at Reichman University (RUNI). They arrived in Herzliya expecting lectures, exams, and the ordinary rhythms of undergraduate life. What they got instead, for many, was a war. Since October 2023, hundreds of students at Reichman University have been called up for reserve duty, some for weeks, many for the better part of a year, cumulatively across their entire degree.

None of them signed up for this. And yet, time and again, they have managed to do both: serve their country in uniform and excel in the classroom. It is not a coincidence. It is the product of deliberate effort by the students themselves, and by an institution that has worked hard to meet them where they are.

RUNI’s response to the reality of reservist life has been to build flexibility directly into the academic experience. Professors and deans have worked individually with students called up for miluim, adjusting deadlines, restructuring coursework, and in many cases redesigning an entire semester around a single soldier’s timeline. The university’s Dean of Students office and the Raphael Recanati International School administration have coordinated extensions, makeup exams, and one-on-one mentoring so that reserve duty does not become a reason to fall behind, it becomes simply one more thing to manage alongside lectures and exams. According to Jonathan Davis, VP of RUNI and Head of the RRIS, ” We are one hundred percent committed to our reservists that have given so much of themselves to our country. For this reason we will not leave one reservist behind.”

That support extends well beyond the classroom. The Raphael Recanati International School has built a tight-knit international community of students from dozens of countries, many of whom chose Israel and chose to serve. Clubs, fellowship programs like the Argov Fellows, and informal networks among classmates have given students a place to land between deployments most importantly helped when the time came to land a job. Add to that a curriculum built for the analytical, business, and policy worlds these students hope to enter, and a network of faculty, alumni, and donors invested in their success, and the result is a kind of compressed, intensive preparation for life: not despite the disruption of the past few years, but in many ways because of how the university chose to respond to it.

Two students from very different corners of the world capture what that experience has actually looked like up close.

Aviv Harel: “Life Can Hit You Like a Truck and I Aim to Hit Back Every Time”

Aviv Harel, 27, was born to an Israeli family that spent 16 years in Philadelphia before returning home when he was 17. He enrolled at Mechinat Rabin, the pre-army academy where he met his future wife, Ofir, and then drafted into the 931st Battalion of the Nahal Brigade, serving four and a half years as a combat officer. After his service and a few months of travel, he tried Hebrew-language courses through the Open University and found that studying at an academic level in Hebrew simply wasn’t working for him. That struggle is what led him to Reichman University.

Once he found his program, Economics and Entrepreneurship with a specialization in Data Science, he was committed. “The combination of an interesting degree and the opportunity to study in English is the perfect match for me,” he said. What he didn’t anticipate was that his years as a combat officer would foreshadow his time as a student so directly: his entire degree unfolded under the shadow of the war, with more than 350 days of reserve duty and two significant injuries along the way.

“My timeline, my situation, my solution.”

Aviv came to Reichman wanting tools to break into the analytical world, along with strong connections and a few friends along the way. “Although my entire degree went a completely different route than expected due to the war, I still managed to come out with the tools and connections I wanted,” he said. “Now all that’s left is finding a job and breaking in.”

The hardest part, he said, was never the material itself, it was finding the motivation to sit down and study at all. After two injuries and what he calls “countless bad stories,” simply showing up to class often felt like the last thing he wanted to do. What got him through, he says, was the willingness of professors and deans to build a plan around him specifically: his timeline, his situation, his solution. “The whole war was a roller coaster,” he reflected, “and looking back, my studies was one of the steadier things going on in my life.”

One turning point stands out above the rest: Reichman’s delegation to Poland. “After everything I went through personally, to join a delegation and go through one of the most meaningful weeks anybody can go through, this delegation truly gave me the power and motivation to get better in all parameters,” he said. “Get in better shape, study more, look for a job, be a better husband, be a better person.” He calls it the best decision he made at Reichman.

He found the Reichman community in his own way, as one of the founders of the university’s ultimate frisbee team, which became a vital outlet to get away from everything and just play with friends he made through the sport. “I always felt like everyone was willing to help with whatever,” he said of his classmates, “and that everybody was down to catch a beer if offered.”

Today Aviv is balancing a co-op internship position alongside ongoing reserve duty, a juggling act he describes bluntly as something that “sucks on one hand,” but that also captures exactly the resilience he has built over three years. “I can confidently say I can handle everything that’ll get thrown at me if I can juggle school, miluim, work, and a personal life,” he said. “Couldn’t say that in the beginning of this degree.”

Despite two injuries spread across three years and 350 days in uniform, Aviv made the Dean’s List with a GPA over 90. “My biggest achievement is finishing this degree, never giving up,” he said. “Life can hit you like a truck, but I aim to hit back every time. This degree will always symbolize resilience for me.” His plans haven’t changed: break into the analytical world in and make an impact.

From Rome to Gazebo Beach: Turning Pain Into Purpose

Another RRIS student’s path to Herzliya began in Rome. After high school, Eitan Sermoneta moved to Israel alone to complete a pre-army mechina through Bnei Akiva, then drafted as a lone soldier into the 890th Paratroopers Battalion. He began his Psychology degree in 2023 and was called back to the reserves almost immediately when the war broke out.

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“The beginning was hard, both mentally and physically,” Eitan said. A disabled veteran, he chose to keep serving in combat roles, ultimately completing more than 350 days of reserve duty over the course of his three-year BA. During the first six months of the war, an injury from his mandatory service worsened significantly, leaving him to manage his studies and his rehabilitation at the same time.

“Reichman gave me the tools to transform my pain into purpose. That’s the phrase I live by.”

“I couldn’t have done it without the support of the academic staff,” Eitan said, singling out the former Dean of the Psychology School, Dr. Limor Shtoots, for particular thanks. That support paid off: he made the Dean’s List and was accepted into the Argov Fellows program, a goal he had held since meeting the Founding Director of the program, Dr. Alisa Rubin at an event shortly after returning from his first stretch of reserve duty.

Alongside his coursework, and inspired by the people he met at Reichman, he co-founded an NGO called “When the Strong Emerge.” Every Thursday, the organization brings disabled veterans to surf therapy sessions at Gazebo Beach in Herzliya, entirely free of charge.

Looking ahead, he plans to continue at Reichman for a master’s degree in Behavioral Economics (MABE), while searching for work he can balance alongside his studies. “Reichman gave me the tools to transform my pain into purpose,” he said. “That’s the phrase I live by.”

A Generation Defined by Both

Aviv’s and Eitan’s stories are not outliers at the Raphael Recanati International School, they are emblematic of a student body that has spent the past three years living two demanding lives simultaneously, often at great personal cost. What stands out, in conversation after conversation, is not just the hardship but the consistent presence of people and structures at Reichman willing to bend around it: professors who rebuilt syllabi for individual students, deans who stayed in close contact during deployments, fellowship programs that gave students something to aspire toward even in the hardest stretches, and a peer community sturdy enough to absorb people who disappeared for months at a time and welcome them back without missing a beat.

For these students, a Reichman degree was never going to mean what it meant before October 2023. It means something sturdier now, proof, in their own words, that resilience and academic excellence were never mutually exclusive after all.

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