Dvir was inducted into the Israel Defense Forces in January. He was sworn in at an armory near Ashkelon that still bears the wounds of fighting in the 1948 war. Before Israel's 1948 War of Independence, Ashkelon was an Arab village, Al-Jura, with about 2,500 people. In biblical times, it was a Philistine town best known as the birthplace of Herod the Great. The word Palestine derives from Philistine, and Ashkelon is only a few miles from the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinian youths the same age as Dvir fight despair and train for an uncertain future.
Induction day is a rite of passage, as much of a milestone as a bar mitzvah or a wedding.
College comes later, after military service. On the evening when Dvir and about 300 other teenagers were inducted, several thousand family members and friends crowded into an outdoor amphitheater at the armory. Many, including Miri Winternitz, dressed in purple or waved purple balloons. Purple is the color of the Gitani infantry unit their children were joining. As the ceremony started, the blue and white Magen David flag of Israel was raised to wave in the soft January evening.