<\/p>\n
JERUSALEM, Israel\u00a0\u2013 War can bring out the worst in people, but it can also reveal the best. One Israeli and his fianc\u00e9e are going the distance to encourage soldiers on the front lines, delivering fresh pizza across the country.<\/p>\n
Gedalya Cohnen owns Bardak Pizza and Tipsey Caf\u00e9 in Jerusalem.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He told\u00a0CBN News,\u00a0“I’m here making pizza and driving it to wherever I need to drive to make our soldiers happy.”<\/p>\n
Cohnen added, “Whether it’s up north, down south, the Dead Sea, we’ve been to every corner of the country. I’m doing it because if you want to come with me right now on a journey of 7 or 8 hours,\u202fand if you see\u00a0these\u00a0smiles that I’m going to see tonight, I got to see them every day last week, you\u2019d want to do it every day, too!”<\/p>\n
Cohnen stayed busy making pizza for the soldiers, even during our interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We asked, “So, they really appreciate it?”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
He replied, “They really appreciate it.\u00a0We show up,\u00a0I walk in with ten pies to\u00a0one\u00a0room \u2013\u00a0it’s\u00a0all gone within like two, three minutes.\u00a0They’re\u00a0all in shock. They really appreciate it.”\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cohnen initiated the project while he was serving in the reserves after the October 7th, 2023, war began. Since the Iran war started in February, they’re traveling the country.<\/p>\n
We asked what originally gave him the idea to make the deliveries.<\/p>\n
He responded, “Originally, I was in the reserves, after October 7th. I was in for a few months,\u00a0and every time\u00a0I’d\u00a0come home and come back to work,\u00a0I’d\u00a0end up going back to base with 10\u00a0or 15. or 25\u00a0(pizzas),\u00a0just for my unit. And\u00a0I’d\u00a0see how\u00a0much\u00a0people in the area and on the base appreciate it. So,\u00a0once I finished my\u00a0reserves, we started doing it for other units, too.”<\/p>\n
Each day, he comes in early and makes the extra pizzas. Initially, he had a driver to pick up the pizzas. Now, he and his fianc\u00e9e do it themselves.<\/p>\n
“I usually get here around nine,” he explained, and\u00a0if\u00a0we’re\u00a0just going to Gaza,\u00a0we’re\u00a0home by 10:00\u00a0or 11:00 (p.m.). And when we go out to Lebanon, we\u00a0don’t\u00a0get home till\u00a01:00 or 2:00 (a.m.). If you see the smiles, you understand why\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0still working.”<\/p>\n
The soldiers are surprised and happy with the treat.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cohnen observed, “The best places that I’ve gone\u00a0are the places of\u00a0the soldiers\u00a0that\u00a0haven’t\u00a0been home in a few weeks.\u00a0There are some bases\u00a0where\u00a0the\u00a0soldiers get to come home every week or two, and then\u00a0there are\u00a0some bases where, for the past 5 or\u00a06 weeks, the soldiers have been on base. And\u00a0so\u00a0the second I got to them, they were just the happiest because no one\u00a0goes\u00a0to them. They\u00a0don’t\u00a0get anything.\u00a0And\u00a0the second they saw these pies, they were all in heaven.”<\/p>\n
And these are no common pizzas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We have some crazy pizzas here,” Cohnen said, and pointed to one of his favorites, what they call the Makor Baruch (the source of Blessing). “It’s Alfredo sauce, Silan, walnuts, and basil.”<\/p>\n
They even make iced\u00a0coffees to send along. “The more people\u00a0we get to help, the more soldiers we can make happy,” he stated. “And there are hundreds of thousands of them around the country right now.”<\/p>\n
Cohnen makes pizzas for soldiers even if he doesn’t get financial help, but the more donations he receives, the more pizza he can deliver.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got some more,” he told us, as he carried a stack of pizzas in boxes out to his car.<\/p>\n
It’s acts of kindness from people such as Cohen during the tough times that give Israelis the reputation for resilience, even under existential threats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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JERUSALEM, Israel\u00a0\u2013 War can bring out the worst in people, but it can also reveal the best. One Israeli and his fianc\u00e9e are going the distance to encourage soldiers on the front lines, delivering fresh pizza across the country. Gedalya Cohnen owns Bardak Pizza and Tipsey Caf\u00e9 in Jerusalem.\u00a0 He told\u00a0CBN News,\u00a0“I’m here making pizza<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[838,819,1230,726,168,5737,145,8844,8842,8843,3499],"class_list":{"0":"post-26532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jesus","8":"tag-action","9":"tag-delivers","10":"tag-front","11":"tag-including","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-lines","14":"tag-love","15":"tag-owner","16":"tag-pizza","17":"tag-restaurant","18":"tag-soldiers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}