Yossi Hai Tahar, OBM, fell in battle after his brother Roi was killed: “Two flowers were taken from me”
In a single moment, the life of Yosef “Yossi” Hai Tahar was cut short. He saved many people in acts of heroism with the outbreak of the war on Oct. 7.
Yossi served as deputy head of a unit in the operations division of the Shin Bet and was 39 when he fell. He was the son of Mazal and Eli and grew up in the moshav of Azrikam. He was a brother to Shai, Guy, Erez, Roi and Bar. He is survived by his wife and four children.
This was the third tragedy to strike the Tahar family. In 1981, Yossi’s uncle, Lt. Col. Yossi Tahar, was killed during IDF activity in Lebanon. Yossi’s brother Roi was killed in a motorcycle accident while traveling with friends when he was 20.
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“Yossi was a beloved and loving child,” his mother Mazal recalls. “A handsome child, a good child. I was connected to him like an infusion. In general, with all my children, I am a mother goose.”
His father, Eli, added: “Yossi was always like a magnet. People were drawn to him and were always around him. He was always the life of the party or the focal point wherever he was. An outstanding athlete basketball, soccer, running. The only thing he didn’t do was study. He would go to school without a bag.”
“He advanced meteorically"
Despite the severe tragedy of his brother Roi’s death in an accident, Yossi decided he wanted to enlist in a meaningful combat role in the IDF and asked his parents to sign their consent.
“Yossi took Roi’s death very hard, and two months later he came to us and said, ‘I passed the selection for Shayetet,’” Eli recounts. “He enlisted in the naval commando and completed the officers course as an outstanding officer. In 2012, he moved from Shayetet to the Shin Bet and advanced meteorically. On the day he was killed, he was already the deputy commander of the Shin Bet’s most operational unit.”
“Our world collapsed”
Yossi’s parents will never forget the bitter, black day on which he fell. “Around 2:30, there was a knock on the door,” his mother Mazal says. “I opened the door and saw three people in uniform. I stood there in shock and told them, ‘Go away.’ My world collapsed. I told myself it couldn’t be that they took Yossi from me. How many times can you knock on my door? It can’t be. It can’t be. God, tell me why? Why did you take these princes from me? Two flowers were taken from me, one next to the other. This is a heavy loss for me. I still don’t believe he is gone from me.”
His father Eli says that two days before Yossi fell, on Thursday at 10 p.m., Yossi sent him the following message on his phone: “Dad, I want to tell you that I really appreciate you, that you are by my side and give me strength when I need it. You think in a balanced, warm, friendly, logical and unselfish way. It’s important to me that you know how dear you are to me. You are very dear to me. Love, Yossi.”
“On Oct. 7, our world collapsed,” Eli says. “On Saturday morning he was summoned to the unit. He arrived and was told that one of the unit’s fighters had been wounded, was lying in the field and could not be evacuated. Yossi communicated with the wounded fighter, who told him, ‘Yossi, I probably won’t make it. Take care of my wife and daughter.’ He rushed out from the unit, located the wounded man, extracted him to a quieter place, treated him and evacuated him by helicopter. The man is alive today.”
His father adds: “From there, he understood that terrorists were trying to infiltrate Kibbutz Mefalsim. They fought there against enormous numbers of terrorists, and indeed in Mefalsim no one was wounded and no one was killed. At a certain point, two terrorists thought he was one of them and called out to him. He spoke Arabic fluently. He approached them, eliminated both and took their radio. At some point, the terrorists fled the area near the gate of Mefalsim and tried to flank and come from the side. A terrorist who was hiding behind a concrete shelter, whom he did not see, fired a single bullet into his chest, and that was it.”
“I am Job myself”
Eli defines himself as Job. “I am not the curse of Job, I am Job myself. Once my brother, once a son and now another son. How much can one take? Whenever I mention Yossi, I mention Roi, and whenever I mention Roi, I mention Yossi. They walk with me constantly, all the time.” Eli draws attention to an important sentence Yossi wrote to one of his fighters on Sept. 23, shortly before the war: “This land, this holy soil, is meant for those who will fight for it and be ready to die and to live for it.”
Eli now serves as chairman of the national Yad Labanim organization, a role that gives him the motivation to get up in the morning and keep going despite the difficulty. “I am entirely devoted to work on behalf of bereaved families. What gives me the strength to continue is when I succeed and try to make it a little easier for bereaved parents. That, in essence, gives me Yossi’s continuity. I want to remember Yossi with his smile and his embrace."
May his memory be a blessing.
Yossi Hai Tahar OBM