About 3,000 foreign soldiers from more than sixty countries serve in the Israel Defense Force (IDF). They commit to high-risk military service of two to three years, a period that might end with their return to their former country, precipitate a longer settlement in Israel, or generate a back and forth movement. My research investigates the personal motivations and structural factors that lead those individuals to join the IDF and the consequences of their military service. The study asks: how and why do Jews from different national and cultural origins decide to volunteer in the IDF? What distinguishes enlistees from the greater pool of similarly situated individuals who do not enlist? What is the role of state efforts and diaspora organizations in promoting enlistment from abroad? And how does IDF service shape the identities, standings, and migration intentions of those who finished their service? To address these questions, I employ a mixed-method approach, combining an original survey with foreign soldiers, interviews with foreign soldiers and officials in enlistment supporting programs, and archival work in Israeli archives. This combination accounts for both soldiers’ experiences and the meso and macro contexts of organizational involvement and state efforts. My study raises a variety of timely questions about immigration and assimilation, state-diaspora relations, globalization, and citizenship. By doing so, it seeks to advance scholarly understanding about the multiple ways in which diaspora members try to obtain social and legal inclusion through high risk militarized engagements.