“‘Hersh! Hersh!’” boomed the voice of tank crewman Yuval Shoham as he stood atop his tank in the alleyways of Khan Younis in July 2024. “Hersh!” Shoham called again and again to his close friend, who had been abducted on Oct. 7 from a roadside bomb shelter near Re’im. There was no reply.
“It was a supreme mission for him to bring Hersh back,” said Efi Shoham, Yuval’s father, recounting what he heard from his son’s friends. “He stood on the tank and called out to Hersh because he was afraid the same thing would happen to him as happened to hostages who were mistakenly shot by our forces.”
About a month and a half later, at the end of August, 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin was murdered by Hamas terrorists in a tunnel in Rafah. “Yuval lost many friends in the war,” Efi said, “but when Hirsh was murdered, it was a very, very hard blow for him.”
Four months later, on Dec. 29, 2024, Yuval Shoham, a soldier in the 401st Armored Brigade, was killed in Jabalia. He was 22. His parents had arrived at his base to bring him a package when they were informed of his death.
“Yuval was a big, strong guy, a basketball player. Energetic and dominant,” said his father, Prof. Efi Shoham, head of the Department of Jewish History at Ben-Gurion University, noting that three of his five sons were serving in combat at the time. “He was curious, opinionated, deeply intellectual. He planned to study the humanities and was debating between psychology and law as an additional field. He was a man of truth, committed to speaking truth. His death is a tremendous loss for us, of course, but I dare say it is also a loss to the humanities.”
The connection between the families ran deep. Yuval’s parents and Hersh’s parents are close friends. Efi and John sit side by side in synagogue. “Hirsh’s parents sent him to Himmelfarb because of us,” Efi said, referring to the Jerusalem religious high school. “They shared a bond as tank soldiers.”
On Simchat Torah, the two families danced together in synagogue. Later, Hirsh and Aner Shapira went to the Nova music festival. Aner and Yuval, Efi added, were relatives.
That was not their only connection. Shapira, Goldberg-Polin and Shoham, all of blessed memory, studied at Himmelfarb School in Jerusalem. Since Oct. 7, nine of its graduates and one of its teachers have been killed. Their names, in the order of their deaths: Staff sergeant Aner Shapira, Captain Ariel Reich, Staff sergeant Shachar Fridman, Staff sergeant Dvir Barazani, Sergeant first class (res.) Ben Zussman, Staff sergeant Oriya Ayimalk Goshen, First sergeant Almken Terefe, Captain (res.) Avraham Yosef Goldberg, Hersh Goldberg-Polin and First sergeant Yuval Shoham. A measure of youth, beauty, wisdom, determination and courage has been taken from the world.
The anarchist who saved lives
The first to fall was Shapira, who in extraordinary bravery stood at 8 a.m. on Oct. 7 at the entrance to the roadside shelter near Re’im armed only with a broken bottle. He stopped between 10 and 11 grenades thrown into the shelter and continued throwing them out even after losing his hand to an RPG blast. Shapira fought for about half an hour before he was killed. Twenty-seven young people were in the shelter. Ten are alive today because of him.
Shapira was a musician and artist who left behind dozens of recorded songs, paintings and stories. After his death, his family released two albums of his work, “Introduction to Anerchism” and “Looking for Love.” A new single featuring Shapira and renowned Israeli singer Yehudit Ravitz has recently been released as part of a third album composed entirely of collaborations with leading Israeli artists. The family has also established a nonprofit aimed at fostering connections within Israeli society through music and creative work.
When reached by phone, his father Moshe said: “Aner was constantly creating, as if he understood he had no time to waste. He was an anarchist in his worldview. He didn’t vote, opposed the entire system and refused to belong to any category. He hated the army and didn’t want to become an officer. He didn’t like school (‘Aner was a very annoying student,’ one of his teachers says with affection). On the other hand, he knew how to excel in his matriculation exams and stood out in the Nahal Brigade reconnaissance unit. He always said that if you’re going to do something, do it well.”
A will and a love letter
On Oct. 5, 2023, Shachar Fridman began his discharge leave from the army. He planned to travel to Thailand, but two days later he was already fighting in the area of the Re’im festival and at Kibbutz Mefalsim.
“What he experienced and saw there changed everything for him,” said his father, Doron Friedman. “The sights and smells of the massacre, the people he rescued from safe rooms, the intense fighting, the friends he lost. All of this opened him up to powerful emotions.”
From someone who barely wrote birthday greetings, according to his family, Shachar became someone else. “The war is making me write,” he told his girlfriend, Noga. He wrote personal wills that were delivered after his death to his parents and sisters. In the final week of his life, he wrote a long love letter to Noga, 20 pages of dense handwriting in a red notebook.
In addition to the personal letters, on Oct. 29 he wrote a broader testament. “He called it an ‘agenda,’” his father said. Less than three weeks later, on Nov. 18, he was killed in a heroic battle in northern Gaza at age 21 while rescuing his childhood friend Yair Lifshitz, who was seriously wounded and survived. Friedman continued saving lives after his death: His organs were donated to five people.
“Shachar didn’t have dreams in a drawer,” his mother, Liat, said. “He lived his dreams.”
Second generation
Ben Zussman, a close friend of Shachar, was discharged from the military in July 2023. In September, he completed the screening process for the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, and was set to begin a course there. But on Oct. 7 he returned to his unit in the Combat Engineering Corps and entered Gaza.
“When Shachar was killed,” said his father, Zvi Zussman, “Ben was in Gaza and couldn’t make it to the shiva,” the seven-day Jewish mourning period. “It hurt him deeply.”
Like Shoham and Fridman, Zussman was a second-generation Himmelfarb student. “That multigenerational connection to the school is common,” his father said. “Ben loved studying there and had a warm place in his heart for it. It’s a place of humanity. A special place.”
Table tennis was central to Zussman’s life. He played and coached at Hapoel Jerusalem, and after his discharge he took on coaching a group of people living with Parkinson’s disease. “He was a kid who worked hard to achieve his accomplishments. Nothing came easily, but he never gave up. He always fought to break his own glass ceiling,” his father said. “We miss him so much.”
Ben Zussman was killed in Gaza in December 2023 at age 22. Like some of his friends, he left behind a written testament. Excerpts follow:
“I am happy and grateful for the privilege of defending our beautiful country and the people of Israel. Even if something happens to me, I do not allow you to sink into sadness. I had the privilege of fulfilling my dream and my purpose. Be sure that I am looking at you from above and smiling a huge smile… If, God forbid, you are sitting shiva, turn it into a week of friends, family and joy.”
At Ben’s funeral, among those in attendance was Rabbi Avi Goldberg, the school’s rabbi, who himself was killed less than a year later, in October 2024, in southern Lebanon. He was 43 and a father of eight.
Efi Shoham had been both Goldberg’s teacher and later his colleague on the faculty. “Avi was an extraordinarily special person, with a radiant personality. He had charisma, a huge heart and a remarkable ability to connect people and reach every student. He was able to draw out their emotions and also find pathways to their intellect. As a teacher, I looked at him in amazement.”
'I want you to smile'
Himmelfarb School was founded more than a century ago. It prides itself on a 100% enlistment rate and about 25% of graduates becoming officers. Among its alumni are former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, senior military officers, journalists such as Amit Segal and Avishai Ben-Haim, judges, professors, rabbis and politicians. The school is associated with the relatively liberal wing of religious Zionism, a small but influential segment within the community.
“One of the most important things,” said Rabbi Ilai Ofran of Kibbutz Yavne, a Himmelfarb graduate, “is whom a person means when they say ‘we.’ In the education we received at Himmelfarb, ‘we’ is not the religious. ‘We’ is the people of Israel, ‘we’ is humanity. Universalism is one of the foundations of our faith. Himmelfarb is perhaps the most significant educational institution I know that seeks to cultivate people who observe Jewish law, serve in the army and hold liberal democratic values, all stemming from the same root. We studied sacred texts and read Hanoch Levin, and there was no contradiction between them.”
“Don’t worry about me,” said Oriyah Goshen in a video his parents received after his death. “I want you to smile. The most important thing is to smile. A smile is our strength.” Goshen, a soldier in the Givati Brigade reconnaissance unit, was killed in southern Gaza on Jan. 17, 2024. He was 21.
His mother said: “Oriyah wanted to do good in the world. That was his motto. He felt deeply connected to the family story of immigrating to Israel on foot through Sudan, and it was important to him to serve in a meaningful role, to defend the people of Israel. He was among the first to enter Nahal Oz. He didn’t talk much, but you could see how much it hurt him.”
Carrying the family on his shoulders
Dvir Barazani, son of Tali and Avichai, a soldier in the Paratroopers Brigade’s 890th Battalion, was killed in battle in northern Gaza on Nov. 19, 2023. He was 20. On Oct. 7, he fought in Kibbutz Be’eri.
Barazani, a descendant of Moshe Barazani, a member of the pre-state Lehi underground executed by the British, was a swimmer and instructor with the Jerusalem Greater Area Association and excelled in short-distance freestyle. “The water was oxygen for his soul,” his father said. “Dvir breathed better underwater than in open air. He had attention difficulties, and I’ll never forget him telling us that in the water he found quiet.”
At 13, Barazani and a friend founded “Project Tami’d” (Friendly Computer Donation), through which about 1,000 computers were refurbished and given to families in need. For this, he received the President’s Award for Volunteer Youth.
Almken Terefe, a soldier in the Golani Brigade reconnaissance unit, was killed on Oct. 2, 2024, in battle in southern Lebanon at age 21. He immigrated from Ethiopia at 18 months old to the Kiryat Menachem neighborhood of Jerusalem. As the eldest of three siblings, with parents who barely spoke Hebrew, he became “the manager and spokesperson of the household,” said his teacher, Golan Amar.
Amar lost three students, including Ben Zussman and Ariel Reich. “Almken’s death shattered me,” he said. “It broke me for a long time. Even now I choke up. It is a tremendous loss.” Amar, who has taught at Himmelfarb for 14 years, described a boy who carried his entire family on his shoulders, working during high school to support them and later sending home his army salary.
The engagement party of Ariel Reich, a 24-year-old Himmelfarb graduate, and his fiancée Noa was held on Oct. 4, 2023. Their wedding was scheduled five months later. But on Oct. 31, Reich, a deputy company commander in the Armored Corps’ 77th Battalion, was killed in Gaza.
Reich, who lost his mother, Einav, at age 16, loved basketball, played for Elitzur and was an avid fan of Hapoel Jerusalem. His wedding ceremony was to be officiated by Rabbi Yirmi Stavisky, who served as principal of Himmelfarb for 23 years and now teaches history. Stavisky has lost 17 students in Israel’s wars and remembers them all.
He speaks slowly and quietly, choosing his words with care. He prefers to speak about life rather than death.
“We are people of life. We do not like to fight, but we fight so that people can marry, have children, heal illnesses and do acts of kindness. We would prefer to be somewhere else, a place of peace. People who live only for themselves, I see them as unhappy. Our story is how to create a healthier, more pleasant society, through the understanding that the whole truth is never found with one person or one ideological group. That is the spirit of Himmelfarb.”