"Rabbi, how hard is it for you to get up in the morning and see the IDF Spokesperson's announcement?" After a deafening silence: "Very, this is the truth," replies Rabbi Avishai Milner, the head of the Neve Shmuel Yeshiva, who lost seven of his students in the war, and fell silent again.
The yeshiva staff in Efrat does not like the terms "bereavement meeting", "bereavement rabbi" or "bereavement educator". They prefer to speak in terms of empowerment, of strengthening, and leave the sacred bereavement to family members who have lost what is dearest to them. But how do you define a yeshiva high school with about 300 students, which lost seven of its graduates in a matter of weeks during the war?
IDF Spokesperson
At the entrance to the library is a makeshift commemorative plaque, which since October 7 has been filled with names, pictures and stories. Captain (res.) Elchanan Clemensohn was killed while rescuing hundreds of residents of Kibbutz Be'eri as a civilian. Itai Zafrani z"l was murdered at a Nova party. Staff Sgt. Jonathan Yitzhak Samo passed away on 10 November, two days after being critically wounded in battle in the Gaza Strip. His classmates, Staff Sergeant Eitan Dishon z"l and Staff Sergeant Eitan Dov Rosenzweig z"l, fell in the Gaza Strip two days apart. On 10 December, bereavement again knocked on the door of the yeshiva when Maj. (res.) Gideon Ilani fell, and five days later the knock was heard at the home of Sergeant Major Shai Uriel Faizm, just three weeks after the birth of his daughter.
The Seven Fallen from Yeshivat Neve Shmuel,
Alongside them are also several students who lost their loved ones, father or brother, in the last months of fighting. One of them is the son of Dr. Eitan Ne'eman, z"l, who fell on 13 October in an encounter in the south, as well as the son of Yossi Hershkovitz z"l, who fell in the Gaza Strip, and the brother of Eitan Dishon z"l.
"By October 7, I knew that all our graduates were running to the front. We are among the top ten institutions in combat recruitment in Israel, and I knew that our graduates would go to the front to fight as we educated them. There's a lot of talk about the TikTok generation and the screen generation, but I wasn't surprised. Educators are not surprised. I had the privilege of participating in the education of wonderful people.
"True, on the one hand it is scary to educate, and on the other hand life is scary and you have to live it. We have built a clear backbone of identity values for these wonderful young people, following what they received at home and in the youth movements. We have maybe 15 percent in their education, and that education comes at a price. We have always known this, and now the private and national events mix, but this is our mission as educators: to build the identity and the moral backbone, so that at the moment of truth we can make the decisions in the most correct and true way."
"Amazing people"
The beit midrash hall is full of students listening to the principal of the high school, Hezi Zechariah. He stands next to the Holy Ark and speaks, while an M-16 rifle hangs from a strap over his body. These days he holds two positions, both critical: director of the yeshiva that lost quite a few of its graduates, and the commander of the Dan district of the Home Front Command, a colonel in the reserves.
Neve Shmuel Yeshiva, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
As a senior officer in the Home Front Command, Zakaria receives the names in real time, even before the families are notified, which only makes it difficult to cope.
"I tend to conjure up the image of the fallen in front of my eyes," he says. "Rosenzweig was an amazing combination of artist and intellectual, who did five units of mathematics and physics. Samu is a sweet mischievous. Dishon had a quiet leadership that came out of the fighting, heard nasty talk wondering why we were here or there, and told his father, 'I'm leaving everything and going back to fighting. I don't like this shallow discourse.' And look at Faizm, who left his newborn child to fight. Amazing people.
"Then you start doing the math, the circles of pain. Who will you call first - his educator? Guide? To the teacher of the program? The late Rabbi Yehuda Amital, Rosh Yeshiva of Har Etzion, wrote about the fallen members of the yeshiva during the Yom Kippur War that in his heart each of the fallen has a significant piece that mourns him.
"It's very difficult for the team, make no mistake. The men play it as if they are overcoming, but it is very difficult for them. And the teachers are authentic, they fall apart. Some teachers cried to me on the phone, 'How can you go back to work after another fall of an adult, whom you knew for years as if he were your son?'
"Coping is not simple, and there is also a question of how to commemorate them. Until the war, there were 16 fallen members of the yeshiva, which has existed for about 40 years. Now there are another third of new ones, and our memorial plaque is too narrow to hold them all. We will have to find both a way to fill in the squares of the memorial plaque and an educational way to remember them."
Fighting for the same land
A little more than a year ago, an eternity in terms of after October 7, Gadi Eizenkot came to the yeshiva – even before he entered the Knesset – to address the students. Today he too is a bereaved father, after his son Gal fell in battle in the Gaza Strip. He, too, sat down in the office across from Zechariah, the manager, behind whose back hung the Declaration of Independence.
"Do the math to whom to call first". Col. (res.) Zakaria, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Now there is a new sticker beneath the old and familiar Declaration of Independence, with a quote from the last words of Yossi Hershkovitz, principal of the Himmelfarb School and father of a student at the Neve Shmuel Yeshiva who fell in the Gaza Strip: "Without slander against the people of Israel. There is no leftist, there is no right-wing, there is no ultra-Orthodox, there is a Jew."
And this is also the message that Zakaria wishes to pass on: "The spirit of Yossi Hershkovitz is also the spirit of all those who signed the Declaration of Independence. They did not always agree with each other, but understood that the magnitude of the hour required cooperation. The new cycle of bereavement is shared by many communities and crosses sectors, and it reminds us once again that we are fighting together for the same country and for the same land.
"It's up to us whether we see the glass half full or the glass half empty. I maneuver between communities of Gaza evacuees and communities in the sector, and understand that this is a fine population and a fine population. G-d, why doesn't it connect with us? I hope we wake up to a new reality."
Rabbi Milner admits that it is not easy to cope with bereavement, but he is convinced that the people of Israel will emerge stronger. "I also have moments of breakdown," he admits honestly. "I pray for my students and for my own children. And yes, at night it's harder and the thoughts come, about the fallen students and those who are in the fighting. It deprives sleep in the simplest sense, but it will pass and we will come out stronger than we entered, because the people of Israel are alive."
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