Eli Wininger comes from a long line of proud Jews. His grandfather survived the Holocaust, and his mother’s side of the family escaped religious persecution in Tunisia. Both parts of his family settled safely in Israel, which, he said, “saved their lives.”
Wininger was raised in Los Angeles as a proud Zionist. In 2014, he found himself constantly advocating for the world’s only Jewish state online and in his personal networks while attending the University of Southern California, but still felt like there was more he could do.
“There are people my age who, just because they were born in Israel, are dying in order to make sure that me and the Jewish people are safe. What’s so different from me? I was scared to do it, but was like, ‘If I make that commitment and make aliyah and enlist, if I can give three years of my life to make sure that what happened to my grandpa and my family never happens again, then it’s beyond worth it,’” Wininger said. “That will be my way of connecting with Israel and Jewish people better and also honoring my grandpa. And that was that.”
So, while his classmates back in LA were deciding on what jobs to apply to, Wininger prepared to move across the world and serve in the IDF. Wininger served in an elite unit that is the IDF’s equivalent to the United States Army Rangers. From 2016-19, he said that they were more or less serving “in a time of peace,” after which he returned to normal life.
But following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel, he was called back up to serve. What he saw was life-changing.
“[Training] is a good foundation, but at the end of the day, nothing is like war. There’s no other way to put it. Nothing prepares you for war. We were the most trained people in the world, but no matter what, war is another beast,” Wininger said.
After returning to the United States from Gaza, Wininger said he had nightmares every single night for a month or two.
It was that experience that led him to decide to talk about the aftermath of his time in the IDF in hopes of helping other soldiers who might be suffering from similar issues. This past weekend, he appeared with the Friends of the IDF at Beth Israel Congregation in Owings Mills, candidly describing PTSD and what we can do to help those who have it.
“I think a lot of Israelis, especially because of the machismo culture in Israel and in any military, [believe] you don’t need therapy, and you just walk it off, and everything’s going to be fine,” Wininger said. “I realized that everyone kind of had that, and everyone was suffering to some degree when I did have these smaller conversations with soldiers. We were struggling with fulfillment and purpose and feeling alone, but no one was actually talking about it.”
Howard and Sandy Bernheim are Beth Israel members who helped host the event, which was held in partnership with the FIDF, a nonprofit that cares for members of Israel’s military. Sandy Bernheim, an FIDF board member, said that learning about a complex condition like PTSD from someone who actually suffers from it painted a much clearer picture than she would have gotten otherwise.
“Everybody is starting to hear more and more about PTSD, and to hear from him — suffering from PTSD — we learned a lot from his story. We could understand it more, and it was much more meaningful hearing it from him,” she said.
A key component of Wininger’s message is that PTSD is nuanced. He himself is open about the fact that he doesn’t suffer from the most debilitating symptoms of the condition, especially compared to other veterans he knows. But that doesn’t make it any less real.
“There’s this idea that if I didn’t personally get shot or didn’t have to carry or treat my friend who got injured, then I’m probably fine,” Wininger said. “Normalizing that there’s a whole spectrum of what PTSD can be [is important].”
Events like the one in Owings Mills aren’t just key for raising awareness for PTSD in the IDF and elsewhere. They also help raise funds.
“While I’m not impacting [the army] by fighting anymore, I can still save my friends and brothers’ lives by getting donors to donate to therapy [and] treatments, because that’s the next battle that every soldier is dealing with,” Wininger said.
For Beth Israel and the FIDF, of which Wininger is the president of the Young Leadership Division of Greater Los Angeles, this was a chance to remind Americans of the realities suffered by their Israeli brothers and sisters who have seen combat for the last few years.
“Our plans are to continue to do [events like] this every year. We just want to get the word out to the community,” Howard Bernheim said.
