In the mornings, the sound of cannons echoes through Ma'a lot Tarshiha. He mentions from time to time the war still raging on the northern front. An iron barrier partially blocks the entrance to the alley, hinting to the comforters to park on another street and reach the mourning house on foot. The family rose from seven.
Also affixed to the checkpoint are pictures of Sergeant Major Uriah Bayer. He was a Magellan soldier who was seriously wounded on 14 December in battle in the southern Gaza Strip. He was 20 when he succumbed to his wounds. At the entrance to the street there is a handwritten sign: "Beloved soldiers, worrying and praying for your well-being." A red heart and Stars of David adorn it, Israeli flags waving in the wind in the street.
Turbin, a representative of the Soldiers' Commemoration Unit at the Ministry of Defense, sits across from Nelly and Gideon, Uriah's parents. He explains its rights to the bereaved family. Leica, a tame black dog, lounging on a knitted rug made by Nelly. Yona, a black-and-white kitten brought this week by her eldest daughter, Rachel, plays with a ping-pong ball under the guests' feet. The living room was filled with bouquets of flowers, most of them teddy bear milk hawks, orange flowers the color of the curtain. Father Gideon repeats the phrase he said to so many comforters during the shiva: "God is not wrong, it is only us who do not always understand Him." He asks the representative if there are expectations of them as bereaved parents on Memorial Day. Representative Turbin, a member of the Druze community, says that only in recent years have people started going to the grave in his village: "It's up to you."
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Mother Nellie, a beautiful and gentle woman, says she wants a simple grave. "Like it was in the village I grew up in in Germany. With lots of beautiful flowers. It was so beautiful that we used to play in the cemetery as children." Gideon adds: "I prefer to wait as long as necessary, for the tombstone to be a good job, not something that will crumble."
Nelly and Gideon consult in German. The German Christian couple receives advice from a Druze representative of the IDF regarding the grave of their soldier son, a fighter in the elite unit. Gideon speaks accentless Hebrew and is peppered with topical slang. He arrived in Israel at the age of two with his parents, John and Crystal, who were sent by the German Christian charity organization in 1972.
The organization's goal was to establish a holiday village in Moshav Shavei Zion for Holocaust survivors. The group then established the Beit Eliezer retirement home in Ma'a lot-Tarshiha, where the extended family works as a team with Christian volunteers from Germany and provides high-quality service to Holocaust survivors. The alley is like a small kibbutz, where the family and volunteers live next to the retirement home. The elderly residents, Holocaust survivors, pay as much as they can. Family members receive a small budget for their work, like all volunteers. The activity is financed by the organization from Germany.
"The fly broke its leg"
Three and a half years ago, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I interviewed family members. They then protected Holocaust survivors from the plague and locked themselves with them inside the nursing home. I return to them after they lost what is dearest to them: Uriah, their fourth of five children, fell in the war in Gaza. Throughout the interview, Nelly and Gideon lean on each other, embracing occasionally. They draw comfort, indulge in family humor, shed tears.
They like to live modestly and away from the spotlight, but have agreed to be interviewed as part of their mission. "Comfort my people, may your God say," says the verse in the book of Isaiah, which instills in them the role of comforting the people of Israel, even in the most difficult moments. They hope this interview will give some hope.
Gideon and Nelly Bayer, Photo: Eyal Margolin, Ginny
Uriah was a mother's child, Nelly says, sending her husband to change into an orange shirt. "Let him be handsome, the way I like it. Orange is my color. Also at our wedding I had a bouquet of this color. Even when Odelia and Rachel enlisted in the Search and Rescue Company, that's the color of their beret. When I found him the orange shirt we laughed, we said we were search and rescue."
Uriah had a quiet nature, and they had to make sure he got the attention he deserved. A cute boy who would bring yellow, pickled flowers to his mother, and for his older sister Rachel's wedding anniversary he gave her a huge bouquet of them.
"He had a gentle soul. Four months ago, I started setting up a garden in the yard, and he would ask the army on the phone how the garden was going, promising, 'When I come back on leave from the army, I'll help you.' It wasn't enough," Nelly says. She wears his refurbished puck over a floral dress. "In kindergarten he didn't talk for a whole year, just smiled and played. They wanted to send him for a hearing test in Haifa. I told them he understood everything, and that Gideon would do a hearing test at home."
"It's very simple," Gideon explains, "I would open a chocolate tablet, he would hear the rustling of the paper and immediately come to get a cube," they laugh. Nelly continues: "They insisted on a hearing test. I said, 'OK, we'll do it for you,' but obviously everything was fine."
One day little Uriah was sitting on the balcony and exclaimed: "Mom, Mom, I'm helping the fly, her leg was broken." Nelly recalls how his father came to the rescue of the fly. Like his brothers and cousins, Uriah grew up with the residents of the nursing home. He knew everyone, and they would eat all meals together in the dining room. On Fridays they would make Kiddush and sing songs in Hebrew.
One day, while helping his parents, Uriah noticed a caravan of ants making its way along the path at the entrance to the nursing home. He insisted on helping the ants, who "worked very hard." After all, one little ant was carrying a heavy stick, and he had to help her. Growing up, he loved to be at home. "Like Jacob who was in tents." He would go out with friends, but not with the intensity of his brothers. He didn't like to read or learn, but he made it through school with his smile nonetheless. And all this time he dreamed of serving in the Duvdevan unit.
The residents also lost a grandson
Nelly came to Beit Eliezer as a volunteer. "After six months, I already knew I would marry Gideon. I had to be full of faith that this is who God is sending me," she says. When they got married, they didn't decide in advance that they would stay in Israel. Gideon says they wanted to be sure they had reached the place God had sent them to. Finally, they established their home in Israel and spoke German with the children until kindergarten. Hebrew was already taught in kindergarten, but to this day Nili speaks to them in German.
Photo: Eyal Margolin, Ginny
It was hard for the older girls at first to get used to speaking two languages. It was easier for the younger children because they learned from each other. "We didn't want Germany to be something foreign to them. They would fly every two years to visit there, including Uriah."
The kids never wanted to move somewhere else?
Nelly: "From childhood they knew that language was our place from God, it was clear to them."
Gideon: "We in the family talk freely about everything. It is allowed to ask all questions and get answers. It was clear to them why we were here."
Why? What do they say to children?
Nelly: We help the older people. They lived and experienced the work."
Gideon recalled how Uriah once came from elementary school after hearing about the Holocaust, and was upset by it. "I asked him: 'Tell me, do you want to meet Holocaust survivors?' He said, 'Yes.' I told him: 'All our residents are Holocaust survivors.' He asked about that grandmother and this grandfather, and that's where the token about the Holocaust fell for him. They were family to him."
Nelly: At seven, two of the residents came to comfort us.
Gideon: "One of them had her birthday the next day, and she said she wasn't ready to celebrate and that they would sing to her. The residents felt they had lost a grandson."
"Before the army, he went to a pre-army preparatory school. ' Arutzim is a three-month preparatory program for the Messianic congregations in Israel, and that's where he flourished," Gideon shares. "He suddenly discovered that he was capable of something, and there was a change from there."
Nelly: He was given responsibilities and roles.
Gideon: "He flourished. He received paratrooper formation, aspired to cherry, and suddenly when he received Magellan he was satisfied. He received two awards of excellence. We were all surprised and glad he found himself."
The children in reserve
On Black Saturday morning, Uriah woke his mother at 7:15 a.m. and asked her to take him to Nahariya. "Neither Uriah nor I talk the most in the morning," she smiles, "I wanted to stay asleep, I asked him to ask Dad, and he told me that Dad was already riding his bike. ' Well, okay,' I replied, 'if Daddy isn't home, I'll pop you up.' I didn't understand what was going on. Everything seemed quiet and good. I was calm."
Within a few hours, Zorel was also called up, and in an elite regular unit, daughters Odelia and Rachel were called up to the reserves, and the Bayers found themselves with four children enlisted in combat. The residents of the nursing home had to be lowered to the basement floor - the protected space, and the upper floor hosted reservists. "I prayed and prayed. Suddenly I couldn't work and I wanted to make a sign for the soldiers, the one that now hangs on the street - my idea, a performance by the German volunteers," says Nelly.
Since the bounce, how has the relationship been?
Gideon: "Sporadic. They were almost without phones."
Nelly: "He gave me a Magellan necklace and it was torn. On the first phone I told him, and he calmed me down, said he would buy me a new necklace. Once a button on his uniform was torn. We have in the laundromat a collection of old buttons and decided to put a special button, not military. In another conversation, he said that every time he thinks about me, he holds the special button."
Photo: Eyal Margolin, Ginny
A cloud passes Nelly and Gideon's faces, tears fall. At 12:30 p.m. on 14 December, they received a phone call informing them that Uriah was seriously injured. They were sent a taxi to Soroka Hospital. "The army treated us like family. Not 'like' – family," says Nelly.
The last question I asked Micha Bayer, Gideon's brother, in an interview three and a half years ago was whether his young children would go to the army. "Of course," he replied, "my nephews do very significant roles in the army."
The nephews are the children of the eldest brother Shlomo, who lives with his family in Shavei Zion. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they stayed outside the nursing home so they could bring supplies to the besieged nursing home. The older children were already in the army and posed a risk of infection.
"It was clear to the children that they were going to the army, to parents less, to their mother not at all," Gideon smiles. "In my generation, there were no significant roles for us in the army. I'm the only one in my family who has received a summons. There was a process. We don't restrict or control the children. Open speech. The child has the right to decide something different from his parents' opinion and still be very loved at home."
Nelly: "The first daughter, Rachel, wanted to go to the army as a medic and was in air defense. I slowly learned."
Gideon: "After three months, she wanted to fight, and she got opposition from everyone, including the community abroad. I said: 'There's no problem with you going to Kirby, I'm just not ready for girls who want to be like a boy. Donate what you can contribute, but don't imitate boys.' Because of the resistance, she wasn't sure. I told her, 'Make a request and let God decide. If God wants you to move into battle, you will. And if not, then no.' She submitted a request, they wanted to pull it out immediately. I know God arranged it. Don't know how. I know that this is the path chosen by God. Only he knows why it's good, my vision is limited. I don't know why it's good that it happens A-B-C. It doesn't require me to understand it. I believe this is the right way. We, as parents, I don't know if we would release anyone for anything."
Nelly: "It was not easy for me to recruit Yonatan, Shmuel's son, and then Yair, and then Rachel. It was hard for me to come to terms with it. I come from a family of Germans of Russian descent. We were originally on the border of the island of Crimea, where Katrina gave the family an exemption from conscription - that they would only cultivate the lands faithfully. I was raised to do only good, not war. Slowly I realized that the verse from the Ten Commandments 'Thou shalt not kill' is translated into German as 'Thou shalt not kill', which is a big difference. In Hebrew it is written: Thou shalt not murder. 'Thou shalt not kill' is the need to defend oneself and not 'Thou shalt not kill'.
"I also had a hard time with the swearing-in ceremony in the army, but when I came to Rachel's swearing-in ceremony and it was wow, it gave me a sign. There were 500 people in the audience and it was quiet, and the rabbi read from the Book of Joshua, 'This is your land.' I felt like I had received a message from God and said, 'God, your children.'"
How did the family react in Germany?
"Wow wow wow," they both sigh, "very hard." Gideon explains: "They got pacifism from the past and lack of knowledge. But the more they saw the girls' work and that they didn't go around killing people, but on the contrary - helping people, the more they changed their minds. Odelia participated in a film about women in the army and it helped them understand. They saw that she had not left her faith and mission. Vice versa.
"When they sat in our living room, I would explain to friends from the community that it's nice that you're against weapons, against the army, I don't have a problem with that. Come sit with me in the living room, we'll talk. The army will move from the border, and then there will be no question of whether they will slaughter us or not, but when they will slaughter us. So it was theoretical, before October 7. After the terrible massacre, after no one provoked them, all excuses ran out. That was unequivocally what went on there. The fact that they experienced the children in the army gave them a different perspective. We got a lot of comments in the community saying they were proud of Uriah.
"In my view, I can't understand anyone who says they love God and don't love Israel. I don't want him to love the people of Israel because it's a perfect people that doesn't make mistakes, but because God loves them," Gideon says emphatically.
According to the verse
I'm curious to know, why did you do shiva?
Nelly: We were at Grandma's funeral in Germany and had an unpleasant experience.
Gideon: "I know funerals and seven from the nursing home took down the coffin and didn't cover the ground. Leave it to the workers to cover. I explained to them that I came from a country where it was an honor to participate in covering the coffin. I stayed to cover and they didn't understand us. Then they went home and everyone dispersed. It's over. It was clear to us that the custom of shiva is good for both sides - both for those who have lost what is most precious and for the people around them."
Religious women entered, hesitating. I didn't know them, I went over to them. They came to tell us that a baby was born in the neighborhood when our Uriah was killed, and they called him 'Uriah Israel.' It was exciting.
Uriah's photos at the family home in Ma'a lot-Tarshiha, photo: Eyal Margolin, Ginny
"I was surprised how many people came to cry for me. We experience it even more with our friends in Germany. They don't have a shoulder to cry on. We'll probably go to Germany for another week, for another seven for them."
How would you define your community?
"We are not Messianic congregations," Gideon tries to define what he doesn't really want to define, "we are not affiliated with a specific denomination. We believe in the Bible and the New Testament."
Their communities are in Germany and Canada, and that's where the volunteers come from. The sons, Zeruya and Uriah, received at their inauguration a Bible and the New Testament bound together in one book in English. They were very proud of it.
"We didn't come to atone for the actions of the Germans, we can't atone for it. We came out of love for the people of Israel. I don't come as a neutral person – I come as a German whose people hurt the people of Israel very much," Gideon adds. He has been working in recent months to expand the nursing home to 72 beds according to the German standard of bed per room, "and the Ministry of Health approved this for us," he notes proudly.
Why shouldn't they approve? I ask. Nelly laughs as if I don't know the concept and bureaucracy of government, and then winks at Gideon: "What, won't we be in the same room together?"
Why Holocaust survivors?
"The idea of the organization is to do the survivors a little more good, like the Good Samaritan from the New Testament, to put some oil on the wounds and bandage them for the people who have suffered."
What will you do when there are no more Holocaust survivors?
"We work according to the verse, 'Consolation, comfort my people, may your God say.' I would be happy if at the end of the generation of the Holocaust there was no one to comfort the people of Israel. This is not the case. We'll have to see which team we can comfort more. Maybe a second generation, maybe victims of hostilities and Israel's wars and a social aspect. We don't know yet. We will make the decisions together as a whole family."
Grandfather Yohanan Bayer, 84, joins: "What to say to the people of Israel? What is going on today is very painful. No one knows what's coming out of the mess. One thing I know: Israel is God's people, and God's eyes are on Israel all year long."
So why did the massacre happen?
"We don't always get an answer. Ask what he wants in it, what he wants to tell us. I think you have to follow God's way, that's how I see it. You have to pray and keep what he said. Take the Psalms, it gives you strength."
•••
The family, by the way, does not like beers nor football. Uriah was the only one who liked beers and his friends made him beers with an illustration of him - "King Beer", and Rachel organized a shelf full of beers in the living room for the Israeli friends.
"I always saw myself as an Israeli," concludes Sister Rachel, who has now been released from the reserves. She completed her pre-medical studies at Ariel University. "This is home," she says, searching for herself like everyone else her age. Her older sister is now on a trip to South America. It is a privilege to grow up in such a family.
Just before we leave, Netta, a friend from Magellan who was wounded earlier this week in an officers' course, enters the house on crutches. He heard on the radio what had happened to Uriah, and the first thing he wanted to do when he got out of the hospital was meet his best friend's parents, tell them shared memories.
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