I first learned about Yehonatan “Yoni” Asayag through a group email sent by the Forest Hills Jewish Center. The message referenced his involvement in a presentation by Purple Fox, an organization run by Special Forces soldiers that provides support to families of fallen IDF soldiers. Purple Fox helps these families navigate loss and regain stability, offering educational scholarships, mental health and PTSD treatment, and direct financial and material assistance.
Asayag, a Queens native from Hollis Hills, was recently injured while serving in Gaza. After graduating from Westchester Day School, he joined the IDF and completed his training with distinction. He is also an alumnus of the former Solomon Schechter of Queens, now known as Queens Hebrew Academy. I interviewed Asayag in Forest Hills on May 26, where he spoke candidly about his injury, his experiences in combat, and the sense of purpose that continues to drive him in the aftermath of war.
After completing training for the infantry and then the Givati Brigade, he became part of Sayeret Givati, the Special Forces Unit within Givati. Around 600 individuals try out, but only 92 are selected. For five days in the Negev Desert, “they mentally and physically break you down, and they see who lasts,” Asayag said.
He told himself, “If I’m already here, and I’m already doing this, let me thrive, or give it my best shot to be one of those 92 guys.” “I just pushed myself, for the first time in my life, past my limit.”
Ending his IDF service in August 2022, Asayag was called up for reserve duty on October 7, 2023. He flew in from Queens a couple of days later, and by the end of that month, he was fighting in Gaza.
Master Sergeant Asayag said the fighting was “terrifying because it’s the first time your life is actually on the line… We got shot at plenty of times… Everything is exploding every day.” His commander was killed.
He and his unit were fighting non-stop until he got injured in Khan Yunis in February 2024. “We entered an area where it was very dangerous, and there were shots everywhere, and the terrain was very bad, and because we were driving very quickly, we flew up in the air.”
The Humvee flipped over, disconnecting three of his five metatarsals (the long bones) in his right foot. He had “fractures all the way up.” Soroka Hospital in Beersheva put his right leg into a huge cast, sending him home, saying, “You can’t move, don’t do anything.” He was bed-bound for four months. He returned to Soroka Hospital four or five times.
During outpatient rehab at Beit Halochem (Home of the Warrior) in Beersheva, he re-learned how to stand, fall, and walk. He still does the exercises at home that he learned at the rehab. He experiences pain when running or swimming. “It’s never going to be the same thing. There’s going to always be pain in that area of my body.”
Asayag speaks to his unit every day. There’s a bond “only someone who has a team in the IDF could understand.” He is most proud of the discipline, integrity, and teammates during his service.
The morale was “very high at a point in the beginning, and then slowly, slowly, like anything, you have moments where your morale goes really down, and then you have to really find a way to use whatever they tell you to bounce back up, not only for your safety but for your team’s safety.”
Asayag understands the reports of Israeli soldiers not wanting to go back into Gaza after three or more tours, and fighting for more than a year and a half. “People have lost businesses; families have been broken.” “That’s not a place you want to be, but if you need to be, you have to go.” He said Gaza “could have been the next Dubai” if Hamas weren’t the rulers.
The pro-Palestinian demonstrations in America after the October 7 massacres “didn’t faze me because I wasn’t there. I had something completely different to think about at the time, and that was my life in this war.”
His friends recommended Asayag see the documentary movie October 8, which he called “incredible.” “It talks about what happened here, with all the anti-Semitism.” People can see the movie on Amazon Prime, YouTube Premium, or pay $19.99 to watch it.
Asayag’s father and uncle own the kosher Israeli restaurant, Pahal Zan, in Forest Hills, which has hashgachah from the Vaad Harabonim of Queens. His father got the name of the restaurant from two of the names for Hashem in Kabbalah. His father also owns Shai Salon, a barber shop on Metropolitan Avenue in Forest Hills.
Both of his parents served in the Israel Defense Forces but weren’t in any wars. Asayag’s family is from Dimona, Israel, and Yoni spent many months in Israel as a kid.
Westchester Day School and Solomon Schechter of Queens “don’t push you to join the IDF. They obviously push you to the normal route, to get into a good college, but if you want to go into the IDF, then they’re only going to tell you, you are a hero and how much support they’re going to give you throughout the way. To this day, I am in touch with them.”
Asayag starts St. John’s University in September to study Criminal Justice and Forensic Science. He would like to work in government or investigation at places like the US Department of Homeland Security.
Asayag is 23 years old and doesn’t drink or smoke. As we spoke at the kosher restaurant Mezze in Forest Hills, his eyes and body were always facing me, his answers to the point, and he was unfailingly polite. He didn’t speak with bravado.
Asayag declined to have his photo printed because he doesn’t want fame. “I don’t need to go and walk and see myself on one of these social platforms.”
Yehonatan Asayag would like to share his story at schools, shuls, and communities. He can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
By David Schneier
