Lieutenant Colonel (res.) Yaakov Sharvit, whose official position is the military commander of Mount Herzl, cannot hold back the tears. He stands on the mountain, presides over another funeral of a soldier killed in the war, and for a moment breaks down. "It's hard, very hard," he says. "For 50 years I have been dealing with bereavement, families, informing and conducting thousands of funerals, unfortunately, but I have never experienced anything like this. It is simply atrocity what happened in the communities. Civilians were slaughtered, murdered. It's much harder than Yom Kippur."
A wand walks a few steps, between graves. And it is precisely from there, from this place that he knows so well, that he recovers. "I was there in Kippur too, I'm here now, too. I see my role as a national mission. He is with the families of the fallen at the most difficult moment in their lives and hugs them, supports them, does everything to make things easier for them. I dedicate my life to it."
Anatot residents in a human chain of flags accompany the family of Capt. Shilo Har Even on their way to his funeral on Mount Herzl (Archive) // Photo: Eli Ezra
He has been in bereavement, in national mourning, for half a century. Perhaps the last remnant that took part in both the Yom Kippur War and the current war. At night he sighs, he never stops crying, tormenting, seeing the fallen and their families before his eyes. But then, every morning, he gathers himself and wakes up for a new day. Informs another family, conducts another funeral on Mount Herzl and in the Jerusalem area. Tirelessly, with great dedication.
Sharvit, now 70, took part in the burial effort of the fallen soldiers of the anti-aircraft disaster, the helicopter disaster. Even during the Intifadas, in the Tyre disaster, he actually missed nothing related to bereavement.
"About 1,500 times I told myself enough, I'm retiring, I'm going to rest, I've seen and experienced everything. But it's stronger than me, I can't walk. One night Miriam Peretz called me. That was when her second son fell. She actually asked that he be buried in the same plot where her first son was buried. I got up immediately, drove to the mountain at 2:00 A.M. I knew I had to find a solution to it, and until I couldn't, I didn't calm down. It was clear to me that I shouldn't let her down."
"Don't give up"
Yaakov Sharvit grew up in Kiryat Yovel in Jerusalem, near Mount Herzl. Once upon a time, he says, the mountain was the children's playground in the neighborhood. "There weren't many graves back then. We would come there to roll on the grass, it was a real park for us."
But everything has changed since then. Sharvit enlisted in Golani a year before the Yom Kippur War, was wounded and transferred to serve in the battalion's adjutants, where he dealt, among other things, with reports on soldiers falling during the war. "After the war, I was already a casualty NCO in the city officer in Jerusalem. There was the entire operation to transfer the fallen for permanent burial. 100 funerals a day across the country.
"It was crazy. I did everything then. I would also announce casualties, also event manager, also funeral director, everything. Today the situation is quite different in this regard. There is a large support system, both physical and mental. Informants, therapeutic professionals. Everything has really changed for the better."
After his discharge from the IDF, he worked in Egged and continued his reserve duty in the army. "Everyone knew that when a soldier falls, God forbid, that there is a burial on Mount Herzl, I leave everything and go manage the event. Unfortunately, I have presided over thousands of funerals over the past 50 years. I only missed a funeral once, when I was abroad."
He didn't believe it would happen to him again. Then came Black Sabbath. Sharvit knew immediately - the grief, the bereavement, everything would flood him again. "In our worst-case scenarios, we never dreamed something like this would happen. We have already buried dozens of soldiers on the Mount in this war. I take everything home, in. I'm very sensitive and vulnerable, but I'm not ready to break. The families need more than anything else the human touch, the guiding, supportive hand, and I am always there for them."
Sometimes he also goes to the shiva of the families. "Not everything goes smoothly. Sometimes families are upset at first, find it difficult to accept the loss, and the whole burial thing does not go smoothly. I'm not giving up. I bravely go to them for shiva, sit with them, and we settle everything. It's so important to them, and to me, too."
I ask him how long, how he manages to contain it.
"I don't have an answer for you," he pauses, then comes to his senses: "I also went through a difficult personal bereavement. My wife Rachel (Ricky) passed away more than 20 years ago, after a long battle with cancer. She kept supporting me and telling me, 'Keep going, you have to do everything and help so many people.'"
His voice gasps. After a few moments, he calmed down: "As long as I have strength, as long as I can, I will continue to be on the mountain. I always dream that there will be no more spaces. Unfortunately, it's coming. And now it came with all its might, with all the inferno."
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