“I didn’t lose, I gave.”

A Fashion Ad in an Age of Amputees

I remember reading a short story in school called, “Not poor, just broke,” about a family living in material poverty, but with richness of spirit. This story jumped to mind as I listened to the words of Alon Kaminer, a deputy commander in Israel’s Navy, who lost two hands, a leg and an eye in combat in Gaza. Or rather, as he insists in this ad, “I didn’t lose, I gave.”

When Alon finally went out on the street after a long hospitalization, he realized that there was something else he could give. First, to his fellow “givers” - his new friends whom he’d met in the hospital and in rehab, who would also have to learn to live with the discomfort of people when they emerged back into regular life, and even more so- to all those who might be made uncomfortable by the appearance of someone missing a limb, an eye, whatever…

As the ad suggests, it’s a new reality in Israel, and not only had we better get use to it, but we can appreciate the beauty in the incredible resilience of those that have given so much.

I bring here the ad, followed by a story Alon tells about a Whatsapp conversation at the ad’s conception.

But first: a quick Hebrew lesson that will help you understand the story Alon tells: chatich is a slang way of calling someone ‘good looking’. It sounds similar to chatuch, which means ‘cut’. So when someone involved in making this ad wrote to Alon and said that when he chose his hospital-buddies who’d join him in the ad he “took all the good-looking ones/all of the chatichim (pl.),” with his incredible positivity, Alon laughs at the phone’s way of spell-checking the sender. Now listen to the story and see if you get why he’s laughing.