In 2014, the Perez family made a decision that most people in their community thought was unusual, maybe even reckless. They were comfortable in Johannesburg, South Africa. Rabbi Doron Perez was a respected communal leader with a thriving career. Their children were settled, their lives were full. And they picked up and moved to Israel.
Their son Daniel was thirteen years old.
Eight years later, Daniel Perez was a Captain in the IDF’s 7th Armored Brigade, a tank commander stationed near the Gaza border. On October 7, 2023, he and his crew fought for hours against the Hamas invasion of the Nahal Oz outpost. He was 22 years old when he was killed. His body was taken to Gaza.
For eighteen months, his family did not know if he was alive or dead. In March 2024, his parents buried his blood-soaked clothing and sat shiva. On October 13, 2025, Daniel’s body was finally returned to Israel.
His sister Shira had said it plainly: “You entered the heart of everyone who met you. You were an amazing brother, an exemplary friend, commander, soldier and person. You are an inspirational figure for all of the nation of Israel.”
A family that chose Israel. A son who gave his life for it.
Beit Daniel — a home for lone soldiers in Bet Shemesh — bears his name. And it is no coincidence. Because every young man who walks through its doors made the same kind of choice the Perez family once made: to leave everything familiar and build their lives in the Jewish homeland.
The Ones Who Choose to Come
There is something different about a lone soldier.
Every country has soldiers. Most of them serve because they were born somewhere, or because the law required it, or because they needed a job. The young men who enlist in the IDF from America, Canada, England, Australia, and South Africa do not fit any of those categories. They come because they made a choice — an extraordinary one.
They pack a bag. They say goodbye to their parents. They get on a plane. And when they arrive, they begin a life with no safety net. No family apartment to return to on weekends. No parents to pick them up from the bus on Friday afternoon. No mother who will notice if they seem quieter than usual.
The Prophet Isaiah wrote of a people who would be gathered back to their land from the ends of the earth: “From the east I will bring your offspring, and from the west I will gather you” (Isaiah 43:5). For three thousand years those words were read as a promise for a distant future. Today, every flight from New York or London or Melbourne carrying a young Jewish man to serve in the Israeli army is a fulfillment of that verse — quietly, without fanfare, one young life at a time.
These young men chose to answer that call. They deserve more than barracks.
What Beit Daniel Is
Five floors in Bet Shemesh. Sixty-eight apartments, built to house the lone soldiers who have no place else to go.
It is not a facility. It is not a program. It is a home — with furnished rooms, a dining hall, stocked refrigerators, floor lounges, a wellness office, rabbis and mentors who know every soldier by name. When a soldier finishes a week on the front and steps off a bus, there is someone waiting. There is a room with his things in it. There is a Shabbat table where people will ask how he’s doing and actually mean it.
One mother of a soldier living there put it simply: “It is reassuring to know that our son is being looked after. Nothing can replace a parent’s love and support, but this does as much as they can. It helps a mom sleep and breathe a little bit easier.”
Forty soldiers are already living at Beit Daniel. Twenty-eight more are waiting to move in.
You Can Be Part of This
The Bible says of God’s relationship with Israel: “I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself” (Exodus 19:4). Every generation has wondered what it means for God to carry a people. Perhaps it means that when a young man gets on a plane alone and chooses to serve the Jewish homeland, something larger than himself is carrying him. Our job is to make sure that when he lands, there is a home waiting.
The Perez family chose Israel. Daniel gave his life for it. The young men of Beit Daniel are making that same choice right now.
