“Although I had a job lined up for the summer to earn enough money to pay for my college tuition and rent, when the hostilities broke out I dropped everything. I went back to my unit even before I was called up for reserve duty. The Jewish Agency scholarship was instrumental in my returning to college this fall.”

Ido Tkacz, 26, is a modern-day Israeli hero. Born in San Francisco while his father was completing his doctorate in aeronautics at Stanford University, Ido returned to Israel as an infant. The family settled in Haifa. More