Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.

Tuvia Book was honorably discharged as a combat medic in the Israel Defense Forces following the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Like most Israeli reservists, however, he stashed a uniform in his basement, "just in case."

That emergency occurred on October 7, 2023, when Book, learning of the Hamas murderous onslaught on southern Israel, pulled out that uniform and, hearing a rumor that some units based in the south were lacking combat medics, packed his car and drove. He arrived, without enlistment papers and no longer even registered in the draconian IDF bureaucracy.

He was accepted into the Palmar Asaf Medical Extraction Unit and fought his way back into the IDF system.

Book, who in "real life" is a Times of Israel blogger, a tour guide, author and Jewish educator," has served in the reserves for the past 12 out of 14 months of war.

At the end of November, the Medical Corps reported that some 5,300 wounded soldiers had been treated amid the ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and another 700 in Lebanon.

Book describes his unique reservists unit, and how a combination of speed, professionalism and technology is resulting in a vastly lower case fatality rate — the proportion of wounded who end up dying -- than in any previous war.

So this week, we ask Tuvia Book, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 

IMAGE: Reservist Tuvia Book, a combat medic in the Palmar Asaf Medical Extraction Unit, in Gaza, 2024. (courtesy)