Making 12,000 Sandwiches a Day for Israeli Soldiers

I heard the newscast: more soldiers fallen; another missile attack; fate of the hostages; antisemitic attacks around the world….

So what do I do to keep sane in insane times?

Aromatherapy. But not the one you know. No essential oils. No soothing smells of lavender and vanilla. The oil I use comes from mayonnaise; the smells that soothe come from pickles and tuna.

Welcome to Bet Shemesh's Aroma Espresso Bar, headquarters for volunteers crafting sandwiches daily for thousands of hungry Israeli soldiers.

Enter…Volunteers

Following the October 7 pogrom, Israeli institutions struggled to support 300,000 reservists called up and thousands of civilians evacuated from devastated or threatened communities.

Enter…volunteers. Pop-up situation rooms were organized overnight, supplying soldiers and displaced civilians with their needs.

Hard at work (Photo credit: Karen Feldman)

This being a Jewish country, food topped the list. Israelis stepped up to the plate, sending food to whoever needed a good meal or a home-baked nosh.

Yariv Shefa, the owner of Aroma Espresso Bar, Israel’s largest coffee chain, joined the army of volunteers.

Aroma Bet Shemesh became the sandwich-making hub where volunteers prepare 10 to 12,000 hearty sandwiches every day, sent to army bases nationwide and to soldiers serving in Gaza.

The operation requires hundreds of loaves of fresh-baked bread; 150 kilos of sliced cheese; 200 kilos of mayonnaise; buckets of cream cheese; tubs of tuna; and 7,000—yes, you read that right—7,000 eggs. Daily.

But mostly—it takes volunteers. They start arriving by 7:30 AM; by 11, you have to wait for a spot to open in the crowded cafe. Half the bar, where customers used to relax over lattes, is covered with constantly-refreshed boxes of newly-baked bread, hot from industrial ovens. At the other half, non-stop cheese prepping. Two bread-slicing machines in constant use. In the tiny cramped kitchen in back, volunteers tirelessly prepare omelets on griddles.

Tables become sandwich assembly lines. Volunteers work at their specific tasks: spreading cream cheese or tuna, layering cheese or omelets, adding pickles and tomatoes, wrapping the finished product in paper, and bagging it. Each bag carries a handwritten message, like "Hashem yishmor otcha—God should watch over you!" lovingly penned by other volunteers.

Amid controlled café chaos, shouts ring out: "More tomatoes!" "Out of bread!" "Tuna's gone!" "Omelets!!!!" Volunteers rush through narrow aisles between tables, refreshing pickle containers, clearing bread ends. Aroma staff oversee quality. I sat with a QA pro from a major drug company. An Aroma worker rejected her tuna-spreading technique—she could see edges of the bread, the tuna wasn't spread properly. Volunteers argue how thick to spread the mayonnaise. Grandmothers insist on adding extra tomatoes and pickles, despite packers' pleas not to overstuff and make soggy sandwiches.

A team of volunteers make 12,000 sandwiches a day (Photo credit: Karen Feldman)

Occasionally, soldiers visit the crowded store for free drinks and sandwiches—and blessings from us volunteers stopping work for a moment to cheer our heroes. But Aroma workers remind us, keep moving…. Hungry soldiers are waiting all over Israel for their lunch.

Who volunteers? Hebrew, English, French, Spanish speakers. Gap year students. People from Bet Shemesh or from abroad. I spread tuna with a woman from Baltimore on an Aish solidarity mission, wrapped sandwiches with a volunteer from Florida who came to visit his children over Sukkot—and decided not to leave after war broke out.

Lots of academics, myself included, volunteer, since the universities haven't yet opened. I discussed Charles Dickens with a Humanities Professor with four sons in the army. A young woman comes every day and organizes the tables. I assumed she was an Aroma worker; turns out she's a Professor of Management in a major university.

Aroma Therapy

Where’s the therapy? It's in not feeling totally helpless in an out-of-control world. I can't keep the soldiers safe, but I can help keep them well-fed— and keep them strong, knowing that in a Bet Shemesh café, hundreds of people are thinking of them, worrying about them, working for them, praying for them.

Getting my therapy

There's therapy in sharing the experience of war. A volunteer, a teacher, mourns; a former student was killed in Gaza. She blinks away a tear—and continues stuffing the sandwich with tomatoes. Volunteers talk endlessly about children and grandchildren in the army: who's stationed where, who's given in his phone, meaning he's entered Gaza, who's home on leave.

Mostly, there's therapy in seeing a community, a people, a nation coming together in a small café in Bet Shemesh. A community working, laughing, crying, and creating sandwiches filled with hope, love, tuna and mayonnaise.

Yesterday, I manned the tuna line. Two hours later, a WhatsApp message: a photo of my soldier son enjoying a tuna sandwich delivered fresh from Bet Shemesh. Had I spread the tuna (reaching the edges of the bread) for my own son? Uncertain. But what's certain is that someone who cares deeply for our soldiers, for our people, had made my son a hearty lunch.

My son enjoying some goodies.

May God watch over him and every soldier and all His people, wherever they are.