Two and a half years later, the same knock. The same question. A different child.
October 2023. A few weeks after the war started. We had a candy platter in the back seat of the car.
That was the entire operation. One platter. One address. A reservist’s family we had been connected to through a friend of a friend. The father had been called up within hours of the attacks and his wife was home alone with the kids.
We pulled up to the building, walked to the door, and knocked.
Before the mother could answer, a small voice came from inside.
“Is Abba home?”
The boy heard the knock and thought his father was back.
I stood there holding a candy platter and could not move. The mother opened the door and the boy looked up at us, then looked past us, then looked down. He was maybe four years old.
That moment became the reason for everything that followed. One small voice asking one question that contained the entire weight of what was happening to thousands of families across the country.
We went home that night and built the foundation of what became Smiles for the Kids.
Then I went back.
Two and a half years later, I went back to that same door.
Different season. Different delivery. The organization that started with one candy platter had distributed over $1.4 million directly to soldiers, military families, displaced communities, widows, orphans, and underprivileged youth. We had supported over 40,000 soldiers. Fed over 300 families a week. Organized 80 carnivals for evacuated communities. Built six full programs operating simultaneously across the country.
I knocked.
And from inside, a voice. Older now. Steadier. But the same kid.
“Is Abba home?”
The boy grew up. The question did not.
The boy is six and a half now. He has grown. He goes to school. He has friends and interests and a life that has continued to move forward the way children’s lives do, relentlessly, regardless of what is happening around them.
His father has been called up again. And again. And again.
Every knock on the door still carries the same hope.
An entire generation is growing up this way.
I think about what that means for an entire generation of Israeli children. Kids who were toddlers on October 7th are now in first grade. They have spent more of their conscious lives in a country at war than at peace. The sound of a door opening still makes them look up and scan for the one face they want to see more than anything.
And the fathers. The men who keep getting called, keep packing the bag that never fully gets unpacked, keep watching their children grow through video calls and 48 hour breaks that are never long enough. They come home and the house has changed. The kids are taller. The routines have shifted. The wife has figured out how to do everything without them because she had no choice.
He walks in and for a moment he is a visitor in his own home.
The child who once ran to the door screaming for Abba now looks up from a screen, says hi, and goes back to whatever he was doing. Because this is normal to him now. Abba leaves. Abba comes back. Abba leaves again. The excitement fades when the cycle repeats enough times.
That is the part nobody talks about. The slow erosion. The fathers watching from the outside of a life that learned to keep going without them.
We thought this would end. It has not.
Israel has become a society at permanent war. Reservists are not serving one rotation and coming home. They are being called up multiple times a year, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months. The families absorb every deployment. The wives carry the household. The children adapt in ways that will take years to fully understand.
When we started Smiles for the Kids, I thought we were responding to a crisis. A terrible, historic event that demanded immediate action. I believed the need would eventually slow down. The war would wind down. The families would stabilize. The soldiers would come home for good.
That has not happened.
The need has grown. The deployments have continued. New fronts have opened. The same families we supported in October 2023 are the same families we are supporting in March 2026. Some of those families have been through four or five call ups. The wives are exhausted. The kids are older but the question at the door has not changed.
So we keep showing up.
We deliver meals to families in need. We supply soldiers with gear the army does not provide. We run carnivals for evacuated communities so children can have one afternoon that feels normal. We support families of the fallen. We take care of underprivileged youth and orphans who were struggling before the war and are struggling more now.
100% of every dollar donated goes directly to the people who need it. Zero overhead. That has been true since the first candy platter and it is true today.
We have come a long way from one delivery in October 2023. But when I stood at that same door two and a half years later and heard the same question from the same boy, I understood something clearly.
The distance we have traveled means nothing if the families are still in the same place.
Until he comes home, we will be there.
A six year old should not still be checking the door for his father. A wife should not still be doing Pesach prep alone for the third year in a row. A soldier should not be packing his bag again before he has finished unpacking it.
But that is where we are. And so we keep going.
Because the next time someone knocks on that door, maybe it will be his father.
And until then, we will be there.
If you want to help support Israeli military families and the communities affected by this ongoing war, visit smilesforthekids.com or donate directly at givebutter.com/Smiles-forthe-kids-2026. Every dollar goes directly to the people who need it.