24-Dec-24: "I can do it": Reflecting on a precious life cut short

As they do in some years, a major festive celebration for Jews all over the world gets underway tomorrow on the same day that Christians throughout the world mark one of the most joyous days in their calendar.

For our family, the eight-day-long religious festival of Hanukah and its emphasis on candles, joy and the Jewish people triumphing over evil is going to have a very different resonance this year. Exactly a year ago, moments after the first Hanukah candle was lit amid the happy chaos of playful children and dinner on the table, a small knock on the door at the home of our son-in-law's family here in Jerusalem heralded changes of the absolutely most nightmarish kind.

A team of solemn IDF soldiers stood there. With a war raging in Gaza for two months, they brought with them the worst news a family ever hears.

* * *

Naftali Yonah Gordon married our daughter Pesi in 2019. Everyone who knew them understood that theirs was a love match of the most beautiful kind. As Pesi's parents, we adored the young man she brought into our family's life, and when the children were born, two sweet and lovely girls who today are four and two, the blessings in their lives and in ours felt untouchable.

Today according to the secular, solar calendar, December 24, 2024, happens to be the day Naftali and those who loved him would have celebrated his 34th birthday. 

The tribute below is written by Naftali's grieving mother, Beaty, for a booklet that is going to be distributed to friends and family who will attend the memorial events this week. They mark a year since he fell in a fierce battle with the forces of Hamas in Gaza exactly a year ago on December 7, 2023. [See 06-Feb-24: Obituary: Naftali Yonah Gordon, our adored son-in-law]

(The Jewish calendar is based on lunar months so that the anniversary marks a year since the eve of last year's Hanukah.) 

Naftali Yonah Gordon was born on December 24, 1990 (the seventh day of the Hebrew month of Tevet, 5751) in Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City. With his Hebrew birthday coinciding with the "13th" Chanukah light, he was affectionately known as our family's Chanukah present.

When he was just 18 months old, we made aliyah to Israel, first settling in Ramot for five years before moving to the community of Hashmona’im.

Naftali began his education at the local MAMA”D elementary school and later attended Yeshivat Ner Tamid for high school. 

During this time, he demonstrated his caring and generous nature through volunteer work. At the therapeutic horseback riding ranch in Kfar Ruth, he worked with children with special needs and helped train horses.

He also dedicated his time as a counselor at Keren Or, an institute for blind and multi-disabled children, where his devotion and compassion were deeply felt.

Naftali served in the Israel Defense Forces as a gunner in the Armored Corps. Afterwards he pursued his lifelong dream of becoming a physical therapist. He studied at Ariel University, driven by his personal ideology of "I Can Do It” which inspired him to overcome the challenges of dyslexia and achieve his goals.

Naftali's innate kindness and sensitivity blossomed as he matured, shaping him into a person who gave selflessly and found joy in helping others. His patients, both in his work with the Clalit Health Services and in the army, admired his dedication and his ability to inspire confidence and hope, enabling them to overcome their challenges.

In 2019, Naftali married Pesi Roth, bringing immense joy to his family. Together, they built a loving home, raising two daughters, Libi (now 4) and Gefen (now 2). Family was central to Naftali's life and he structured his schedule to spend meaningful time with his daughters — taking them to kindergarten, enjoying afternoons in the park, cherishing bedtime routines. Their home was filled with the warmth and laughter that characterized Naftali's spirit.

A talented cook and baker, Naftali delighted in sharing his culinary creations and recipes with loved ones. He also took pride in bringing his daughters to shul every Shabbat, instilling in them a deep love for Judaism and its traditions.

His devotion to his wife, children, parents, and siblings was unwavering, and his presence enriched the lives of all who knew him.

On December 7, 2023, Naftali heroically gave his life defending his country. During a mission in Sejaiya, his tank was hit by a rocket, triggering an explosion that claimed the lives of both Naftali and his tank commander, Omri Roth. His courage, dedication, and love for his country will forever be remembered.

May Naftali’s memory be a blessing, and may the love and joy he shared continue to inspire and comfort those who were privileged to know him.

Naftali is terribly missed. 

06-Feb-24: Obituary: Naftali Yonah Gordon, our adored son-in-law

The obituary that follows was published yesterday by Times of Israel under the headline "Master Sgt. (res.) Naftali Gordon, 32: A man of ‘honesty and justice’ | Killed in combat in the Gaza Strip on December 7". 

The fallen soldier was our greatly-loved and admired son in law, the father of two of our toddler grandchildren.

* * *

Master Sgt. (res.) Naftali Yonah Gordon, 32, a soldier in the IDF's Artillery Corps Battalion 53, was killed in battle in Gaza on December 7.

Naftali, who was a physiotherapist in Jerusalem, leaves behind parents, siblings, a wife, and two daughters.

Speaking at Naftali’s funeral, his wife Pesi, who lost her sister Malki Roth in the 2001 Sbarro bombing, said that he was a perfect husband and father.

“Since you entered my life, it’s been full of light,” she said. “I wanted to grow old with you, you will always be mine and I will always be yours.”

She also promised him that she would raise their two daughters with joy.

Naftali’s mother Beaty Gordon said her son had been an excellent swimmer and loved jogging. She also said he always wanted to help people.

His sister Shira Posner echoed this, saying that he was a “man of action” and a “man of honesty and justice who was filled with joy and humor.”

A new memorial corner in the Jerusalem
medical clinic where Naftali practised as
a physical therapist

Naftali’s fellow soldiers said he had been like a brother to them and that he had regularly put himself at risk for them.

Over Hanukkah, Naftali’s clinic dedicated one of the holiday nights to their lost friend. They described him as having been deeply loved by his whole team.

“Naftali was everything,” they said before the candles were lit. “He had golden hands that could build and repair anything, and he was very smart, giving, kind, and modest.”

A former physiotherapist at the clinic, Effi Hileli, told Mynet that Naftali was a friend to everyone and had easily fit into the team when he first joined.

He had also been set to begin a process management and clinical training course.

The physiotherapy clinic’s manager, Joanie Meron, told Jerusalem MyNet news, “He had endless patience which stemmed from an incredible combination of him being a wonderful, caring, and hardworking person alongside his outstanding wisdom and expertise.”

04-Jan-24: Adjusting to a new reality

Our family is about as well-adjusted, mutually supportive, loving as those around us here in Jerusalem. Maybe in some respects even a little more than many.

That's not only relevant but perhaps even core to the experience we're undergoing right now.

Those who know us - not via our writing or our social media presence but as neighbors and actual friends - will already be aware of the crushing challenge that's overtaken us in recent weeks. But for the many who pass through our blog or come into contact with articles penned by people outside our family circle, a few lines here to explain.

We were as private as most families are until the summer of 2001. And then lost some of our anonymity in the explosive horror of a bombing in the heart of the city we have called home since moving to Jerusalem in the eighties. 

The middle child of our young family, Malki, a sunny, sweet-natured, generous and talented fifteen year old, was one of many children targeted for her Jewishness in a massacre engineered by Hamas and centered on a pizzeria that's gone on to become a by-word for carnage and vicious cynicism: Sbarro Jerusalem.

Half the victims of that early afternoon atrocity, timed for a busy school-vacation afternoon in one of this city's bustling gathering points, were children. The shocking-enough death toll was fifteen, with some 130 others injured, overwhelmingly mothers and children. That, we soon learned, was the explicit plan. The list grew to 16 just a few months ago when one of the victims - a young mother out for lunch with her toddler daughter - died of her injuries decades after the bombing without ever having regained consciousness.

Accompanied by one of her very closest friends and our neigbours' daughter, Malki was standing at the counter placing her order when an exploding young man (not the terrorist as he is mistakenly called but the terrorist's human bomb) walked in off the busy intersection of King George Avenue and Jaffa Road and, after a few moments of seeming to study the overhead menu, pressed a button on his chest. The button was wired to the guitar case slung across his back. But what was inside was no guitar. 

Though this wasn't obvious to our family for a while, the massive explosion that ensued, destroying the eatery and the tranquility of dozens of families like ours, marked the end of one stage of our lives. And the start of a new and very painful and challenging one.

For us, losing Malki was traumatic in ways we won't try to articulate here. 

With time, the wounds and scars did what they usually do. Not quite healing, they remained ever-present parts of the reality of coping with loss and pain as well as the sometimes-quite-complicated background to lives-going-on.

The years that followed included family weddings, the births of grandchildren, the passing of older members of our families. And, in passing, the ongoing pursuit of the atrocity's mastermind who is safe and shielded in Jordan until today. There were private and occasionally public celebrations, along with observances that for an Orthodox Jewish family like ours give specific shape to the flow of the months and years and even lifetimes. And a myriad of shared experiences that anyone who is close to anyone will recognize. 

On December 7, 2023, just after we lit the first Hanukah candle, several sombre-looking members of a special purpose team from the Israel Defence Forces knocked on the door of our son-in-law's family. Two of our youngest grand-daughters were in the room with their Mummy enjoying a special family moment. It was a relief from the stresses and strains of living without their Abba (Daddy) who was posted to far-away Gaza - along with several hundred thousand other Israeli Abbas - as part of the largest mobilization of military reserves our country has ever known. Again, as in the Battle at Sbarro, the enemy was Hamas.

The special family moment ended as soon as that door was opened. 

The army buried our son-in-law with pomp and very respectful formality three days later. In atendance were many hundreds of people whose lives were touched by this lovely young man, along with his extended family. Though his military role as a reservist involved being inside a tank, our son in law was a physiotherapist with a burgeoing career and many apprecative clients.

But first he was a loving and adored husband, father, son and sibling.

In heart-breakingly gentle tones, our newly widowed daughter spoke at the graveside and then in a television interview during the shiva of losing a deeply admired partner who saw his responsibility, without question and without delay, as being to help defend his family and the society in which we live. 

His life, like that of our Malki 22 years earlier, was distinguished by an all-embracing love and a pureness, a fineness and a nobility of personality that is almost impossible to adequately express in words.