Class of 1979 Reunion with the Families of the Fallen from Midrashiat Noam, Pardes Hanna – Memorial Day 2020

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

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[Speaker R] Okay, I’m Lenny Sapir from the class. First of all, we knew everybody. We all knew everybody. It’s just that this class—maybe all classes are like that—but we really knew everyone, everyone. There were circles and more circles and more circles, and we were constantly meeting in all those circles. Our class in general was a very, very active one, very volunteer-oriented. We volunteered in lots and lots of places, which wasn’t the case in the classes before us and also didn’t continue in the classes after us. We were at Akim, we were at Beit HaTaf, we were at Kibbutz Gilgal, at the branch in Karkur that Shai started with the guys, we were in Pardes Hanna, we traveled, we used to do Sabbaths in Dalton—Dalton, meaning those same active guys, and there were a lot of them—we were constantly there. You’ll ask when we studied; I don’t know, because I’m not one of those who studied a lot, but I don’t know, maybe there were some who also studied in between. I want to talk a little about Yaakov because even though with Hovav and also Rami we were very close, and everyone was close, as I said, I’m going to focus a bit on Yaakov, because I was very close, and still am, with the family. We’re very close. Yaakov came to the yeshiva high school, as Bina started to say, from the sheltered environment of Bnei Brak. He came to the yeshiva high school for the first time and landed among wild guys. Tough kids from development towns, Sephardim, Ashkenazim. Yaakov probably didn’t know—he didn’t—how could he? And Yaakov immediately connected very, very strongly with these friends, and really helped them a lot. I remember, he used to come to the rabbis, to the teachers, to the administration. Whenever there was a problem with some kid, and a kid caused trouble, or one of the guys in the class did something and was punished, he would always come to whoever had punished him, and I remember him saying, listen, he’s not—understand his background, you need to help him—always to help. Many times, if not most times, they would end up letting that student off. Yaakov really was that person, he really was. You remember, Yaakov went everywhere with a transistor radio. Back then that was a thing for us. At the yeshiva high school, between the classrooms, on trips, on the way to activities, coming back from activities, he was always with that transistor radio. Bina told me today, before we spoke earlier, that some uncle—because she came from the United States—bought it for him as a gift and he was very excited about it. Yaakov knew all the English songs, the Beatles, and he would sing and teach the guys in the class all the songs. I really—I mean, we were active everywhere, Akiva and all those places, but Yaakov and I and two other friends were at Beit HaTaf. Beit HaTaf was for broken families, and there were so many guys—I don’t want to mention names—but really all the guys passed through and helped in all sorts of places. And we were the counselors, Yaakov and I. And you had to see the love he had for those children too, children from broken homes he didn’t even know, and the love he gave them, helping with homework, and they would jump all over him. He was—Yaakov was a large man—and ten of them would jump on him and hug him and love him, and he really devoted himself to those children for a very, very long time. And it came at the expense of his studies and tests; the giving was just amazing, amazing. How a person who comes from a certain background just— and we know it wasn’t easy. I want to finish with the army. We continued, we got to basic training, all the guys met again, all of us in the hesder program met again in basic training. And we got to Nitzanim, most of us remember, we got to Nitzanim, and I was in his company even though I was in a different yeshiva. And we were in scout tents. Now Yaakov and I—they assigned each of us a partner, and naturally Yaakov and I were put together in a scout tent. It’s a shame, I have the picture here, but never mind—Yaakov and I, and he was about four times my size, roughly, and the two of us getting into a scout tent was something. So I said, fine, I’ll take a quarter and he’ll take three quarters, and I can manage in a quarter, no problem. Yaakov? No. Yaakov drew a line in the middle on the sand and said, up to here, I don’t cross, I stay on the line—and he really kept it. Yaakov comes to basic training—while all of us had sleeping bags, he takes out a mattress and a blanket and a sheet. That’s how the class knew Yaakov. Yaakov was always neat, always combed. Notice in the pictures from trips—I don’t know if Shai uploaded the pictures—you’ll always see all of us disheveled and everything, and he’s always neat, dressed properly; when you look at the pictures, you can tell who Yaakov is. And order mattered to him and everything. We’d come back from marches—Miki probably also would go straight to sleep without showering, because Miki and I were in the same room for many, many months. So there were people who would always just go in—he wouldn’t let me. We were exhausted. I said, leave it, Yaakov, let me go to sleep, leave it, I’ll shower tomorrow. No, you’re not coming into the tent. He literally turned the tent into a five-star hotel, and I remember he would make the effort to light a candle and wanted to read at night before going to sleep. He thought he was at home, I don’t know—basic training, after a full day, he lit a candle and we’d read.

[Speaker H] Does anyone else want to speak, tell something, share?

[Speaker W] Yes, since Lenny mentioned Yaakov’s orderliness and cleanliness, I want to tell one small episode. As remembered, Yaakov volunteered with various populations also in Pardes Hanna, and especially they mentioned Beit HaTaf. And one time, God forbid, he got lice. The children there were running around, and apparently that happened to him, and he was really shaken by the whole thing—that it could happen to him, with everything we’ve just described and Lenny described—how could it be? And I’m sure Bina knows this, that he simply—he was in a real crisis. And I don’t want to go into more detail, partly because of time, but he really took it to heart. And there was some conflict here between his devotion to those unfortunate children and the fact that it struck at what we called his order and cleanliness. But when I later came to visit Bina and Arieh and the sisters, I understood where it came from. Such a home, where everything there—that whole English thing—was so deeply rooted there. One of the things I take with me is really the fact that at the yeshiva high school there were study partnerships not just for Talmud, also for secular subjects, for math. And we studied—it worked out that we were study partners for the math exam. I got to visit that home more than once, and I have only good memories of the way I was treated there by the parents. I think Bina will probably confirm it too—I learned how to make rice with—I learned there at home some kind of menu item, some recipe like that. Those are things that stayed with me. And one more small thing, just briefly: I think I also had a part in Yaakov’s decision to continue on to Kiryat Arba. True, I went to Gush and he went to Kiryat Arba, and in the end I also didn’t stay there all that long. But I also remember that point very clearly as part of Yaakov’s life path, of blessed memory. And the sorrow and longing and memory continue throughout all the years, and especially every Memorial Day. Thank you.

[Speaker H] Thank you, Moti, and thank you for sharing. Does anyone else want to tell something, share?

[Speaker C] Yes, if I may say something brief—Golan here, Rami’s brother speaking. Can you hear me? Yes, sit. Me and talking—even though I work as a lawyer—me and talking are not something that connects so well, certainly not in a forum like this and certainly not in a group like this. But I thought maybe the time has come. On this subject, actually I’m not going to speak about my brother; I’m going to speak about bereavement, from that angle of bereavement. I always—it always, I don’t know why, but at these Memorial Day ceremonies I was always a little embarrassed. They even amused me a little. I never understood all the lofty words. It seemed forced to me, I don’t know, I always had a hard time with it, certainly once my nephews entered the picture and the Zionism really got going—still today, by the way—because sometimes this meeting at the cemetery creates funny situations with all that. But I always had trouble with this subject, hearing all the pathos and all the lofty talk, and it was something that was very hard for me on a personal level. And this was also at the beginning of the way—at the beginning, bereavement is also something that obligates you all the time. I remember—I’ll tell something humorous—but when I was a mess as a kid in the prep year of the yeshiva high school, and every time I did something bad, say they’d let it go and say, you’re a bereaved brother and all that. So when it was within the framework of the prep year and things like that, I said okay, fine. But when I’d be fighting with someone and God forbid it would get to other things, and he’d say to me, okay, fine, you’re a bereaved brother, they’ll let you off—I’d say right, and then I’d hit him again, because that situation really bothered me, really bothered me, that they put me in this category of bereaved brother. Now, for those who don’t know, I’m from home—I mean, I can’t describe the pressure, but I can say about myself that I’m a very sensitive person, to put it mildly, and this issue of bereavement, of my brother, is something that has run with me all these years of course, in one way or another, certainly in connection with our parents, because really you had to be careful and you had to protect their health, and it was a situation, as Uzi said, that Rami’s passing, his death, came at a very difficult time, and these are things that really, really, really shake you up. But of course with time, and a lot of help from all kinds of good people, you really settle into some kind of rhythm, into some kind of rhythm of life, and you put it all the time into some drawer that of course opens from time to time, things that keep opening from time to time. And that’s it, that’s what I have to say.

[Speaker H] Okay. By the way, I want to add to what you mentioned, and also to this—first of all, in a few days it will be forty years since Yaakov’s death, who was the first of our fallen among us. There was also Gabriel Kapach who drowned on one of our trips, but from our class—hopefully there won’t be any more. In any case, today we have the perspective of forty years. As Yael noted, there are two Kobis named after Yaakov, and at least one Kobi I know of—maybe both already—has children, so that’s—

[Speaker V] Both of them have children, both of them have children, thank God, they’re both already grown men.

[Speaker H] Yes. By the way, I know Michal because we were neighbors in the same neighborhood, in the same city, in Ma’ale Adumim, and Kobi was with my children, so these are things that, how shall I say, get tied and interwoven with one another over the years. Just as an aside, Arieh, his father, was a tenant with my father in Tel Aviv in Neve Sha’anan, so that already goes back several generations. But that probably happens here with others too, in all kinds of different situations, this web. And that’s why I say, I’ve been a few times at memorial services there, and really you see the children and the grandchildren and the family who come to the cemetery, little children sometimes five, six, seven, ten years old, not knowing what to do with themselves—really funny situations arise. On the one hand maybe it’s sad or not appropriate to the occasion, supposedly, but on the other hand you say this is really the continuation, whether it’s a direct descendant or a descendant through siblings, and in that way it preserves the memory, as was mentioned, that something remains. Thank God, not just something but a great deal, because each one of them succeeded and contributed to his family and to us, and everyone who remembers something really preserves something of that person. Is there anyone else who wants to add?

[Speaker K] I’ll say a few words after all. Eitan Cabel. I of course knew all three of them very closely, Hovav and Rami, but if I try to make an internal ranking, of course I knew Rami extremely well, he helped me not a little, but Yaakov and I were very, very close friends. Out of four years, I think, for three years we lived in the same room, and everything you say about him and more. He decided that, as you know, he was my big brother—and he was big, and I’m this little guy—and exactly the opposite of him except for orderliness, because I was organized and pedantic no less than he was, completely. I remember, one memory of him that is deeply engraved in me is the matter of—at some point he decided, I’m growing a beard now, that’s it, I have to remove the first little down of hair. And I say to him, give me a little more time, there’s barely anything there. No, it’s ugly. I remember the moment when he took it upon himself and shaved me with an electric razor. He was orderly. News time—speaking of what you said, Lenny, about the transistor radio he carried from place to place—and every hour on the hour, if you wanted to know what time it was, you knew, because it was news time and we all had to be quiet because he needed to listen to the news. Really, I was very connected within the class, and to this day I’m still in touch with quite a few people, but Yaakov really, if I have to define the five people I was very close to, there’s no doubt Yaakov is in that top five, he was part of my life. Completely, completely. At almost every stage in the yeshiva high school. I loved him very much. He loved me very much. We were very connected as friends. Truly, his loss is something that again, out of everything I’ve experienced in my life—I just finished a Zoom in another group for Ofer Shternberg, of blessed memory, who was a year below us and also a graduate of the yeshiva high school, and he too is part of the strong memory I have there in the paratroopers. And here, among all the bereavement I’ve experienced over all the years of my life, there’s no doubt that here too, sadly, Yaakov is in the top five of people I knew so closely, where it mattered to him to be in my life and it mattered to me to be in his life. And that’s true. He was easy for me; his pedantry and orderliness suited my character very, very well too. I admit his loss was great for me. Arieh, of blessed memory, his father—I got to reconnect with him at a certain stage when I came to the Ministry of Agriculture, and he worked not far from Arania Street in Kaplan, at the Farmers’ Association building, and we got to meet there many times. There’s more, much more. I don’t want to take up the time because I have another Zoom I unfortunately need to move on to. So you can, as you all know, spend a whole evening telling stories about these three, these three guys. May their memory be blessed.

[Speaker H] Thank you, Itai. I—

[Speaker S] I’ll add a word.

[Speaker H] Shai, please, Meir.

[Speaker S] I actually want to add something about Rami and what you said earlier. The quality of the yeshiva high school was that we also knew the families, their parents. And beyond the acquaintance I had with Rami in the yeshiva high school and later in the army, in Gush, and in the end in officers’ course together—after his death I stayed in touch. I also later taught in teacher training, and I went to get help from his father, who was a school principal, and I even invited him—his father—to be a witness at my wedding ceremony. His father is signed as a witness on my ketubah. So I want to note as well that beyond the memory I have of Rami, there is also that memory, and that’s part of us. That’s it.

[Speaker D] Thank you, Meir. May I say something? Please, Hillel. Hello. First of all, it’s great to see everyone. There are many stories, but I remember—I think it was in Petachim—Rami and I were together in the same room for two or three years, and after that also in Gush. We were study partners together in Gush, we were in officers’ course together with Meir and a few others. About the yeshiva high school, I maybe want to say one thing. Rami and I always—I think this was already under Arieh Igdal, and after that I don’t remember if it was Green too—we used to have to help all kinds of guys who maybe had a hard time socially. And then Weder arrived from Austria, if anyone remembers him. They put him in my and Rami’s room, and he arrived, and that was his home. He had no other home, our room. So Rami and I somehow helped him at the yeshiva high school, because he was a bit scattered and didn’t know the mentality, so we protected him a little and mediated reality for him a little. But I think the one who did something really important was Hovav, and I think maybe he was also in the room, but I’m not sure. Every free Sabbath, Hovav took him home and hosted him, and that was something I certainly very, very appreciated and valued, and that went on for a very long time. Hovav Landau’s home was his home on Sabbaths. It wasn’t something very well known, but I remember it. Maybe just one more sentence also in connection with Rami, who was always very prominent and a leader everywhere. We were together in the army too, as I said. Here he was always the student committee or the workers’ committee. We would arrive, and the first thing was Rami and someone else going up to the company commander for a conditions-alignment talk. When do we pray, when is there a break, when do we make arrangements so our matters will work out properly. And really Rami, especially I think during the officers’ preparatory course, mediated the whole environment for us so that we got along with everyone and there weren’t any problems, so we could get along well with all the broader public around us. We were a pretty exact minyan, pretty small, and he helped us arrange everything, and it was like that everywhere. As for Yaakov, as the stories said about him, I do remember Yaakov in one special anecdote—that we went together for a weekend in Alon Shevut. And the Alon Shevut of those days—it wasn’t an ordinary settlement, but we were yeshiva high school guys. But Yaakov was especially there with his elegant closed English coat, he had a neat umbrella, and he would walk like that like some Englishman in the middle of a street in London. And that was always a kind of pretty funny scene, that he and I walked together like that. I don’t remember exactly the order, but Yaakov was Yaakov. And later, when he was in Kiryat Arba, that too—he always stood out in the landscape, because Kiryat Arba was also a certain kind of Kiryat Arba. And truly we remember them all, and may we merit joyful occasions and good news.

[Speaker H] We have a few more minutes, at least according to what we set. We can stay a little longer for anyone who can, but does anyone else want to say a few words?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe just a few more things, if not—unless someone else wants to. First, Ephraim, Rami’s father from the southern Golan, was mentioned here. I had already heard a lot about him at the yeshiva high school, also from Rami, and afterward he also always came with my father to the yeshiva high school, and sometimes they found Rami there; me, usually not. They would come there together. But my real connection with him, and when I understood the meaning of all the stories, was after Rami died, fell. When I kind of entered a little more into contact with the family, I have to say that he truly was an extraordinary figure in my life. Meaning, the connection I have with the family today is more thanks to Ephraim than thanks to Rami. He was a very central figure for me. I think there was a certain period when I had various thoughts about changing my path and changing direction, and the main figure standing before my eyes was Ephraim. Meaning, what would I say to Ephraim if I decided to change direction? And really, in a great many ways I got to know him after Rami died, and he truly was an amazing figure. Looking back now from a more mature perspective, I understand a little how Rami got to where he got. There was something, like I described earlier—and I have many more stories about that, but I don’t want to wear everyone out with all of it—there was something he got at home. I once met Buzaglo from the Masorti movement, from the Hebrew University, on a panel at the National Library. He was a student of Ephraim’s and also some kind of friend of Rami’s, roughly our age. When I met Buzaglo there on the panel, we talked a bit, and I told him I had been a friend of Rami’s and somewhat close to Ephraim, and he nearly fell on the floor from admiration. I mean for both of them, but mainly for Ephraim. Truly it was a very special home in my eyes, and the connection I managed to maintain with that home was entirely for me. I mean, it wasn’t at all because of some sentiment, some feeling of obligation or something like that. I feel it was almost, in certain senses—not in terms of time spent, but in the essential sense—almost a second home for me. And therefore I think Ephraim was mentioned here, and it’s hard to separate that from how Rami turned out, so it seems to me only proper to mention it too. And regarding Hovav, I really just remember, first of all, the eternal smile, which was already mentioned. Beyond that, he was some kind of Bnei Akiva type, an eternal counselor, who wasn’t even embarrassed to talk about those things. We usually died laughing cynically when people talked that way. We did some things, we were idealists like all little kids, but we didn’t talk about it. It wasn’t really something you could talk about. It felt a little pathetic, a little uncomfortable. But with Hovav, yes—Yoske Shapira was, I think, his uncle, something like that, I think. So somehow it was that kind of Bnei Akiva home, and Hovav really remains in my memory as that sort of figure, some counselor with those sandals, a classic Bnei Akiva counselor, who kept talking about the things we did and thought about and were a little embarrassed to talk about. And Yaakov, of course, has already been mentioned—that gentleman, and I had no idea what he was doing in our class. I said: what is someone like that doing in this class? How did he suddenly land there with all the guys from every direction? Because Itzik Binyamin, who was so connected to him, was really like his son, and the guys from Husam of course—no need to mention—it was all connected. He was simply flesh of their flesh. If I’d had to bet in advance what this Jew would do there, I’d have said this guy would be spit out after three days. What was he even looking for there, that gentleman with the umbrella and the transistor radio? But no. And I was also at his home; we had some idea with Sadan toward twelfth grade, so I went once to his house too and got to know things a little, but not really the home in depth. Truly unique figures. We could remember many more things, but maybe someone else wants to say something.

[Speaker U] May I ask a question? Please. I saw a name there, Alan. Is that the same Alan who was abroad with him, with Yaakov? Alan from where? This Alan?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ala, Ala.

[Speaker H] Ala? Ala Yitzkovitch? Yitzkovitch from Belgium, from Brussels.

[Speaker U] English? There was one English one.

[Speaker H] There was also an English one. Alan Schneider.

[Speaker U] Alan Schneider from Britain, Schneider—Malchai.

[Speaker F] And there was also Grahmani.

[Speaker K] Yes, but Alan—I, Alan, yes, that’s Alan Schneider. He’s very active publicly and very Zionist.

[Speaker H] Yes, he lives in Jerusalem, he’s a lawyer.

[Speaker K] Yes, yes, I’m in touch with him.

[Speaker H] Yes, he’s in Motza. Originally I think he’s from Netanya, if I remember correctly. Thank you.

[Speaker R] That Alan—he’s a story in himself. He used to play, he drove us crazy. Do you remember what he played? That Alan played the violin. He drove the whole dorm crazy with that violin. Anyway, it doesn’t belong to the evening, but that was the big picture.

[Speaker X] Okay, I want to say something about Yaakov. First of all, every year on the Sabbath of Chayei Sarah I have the privilege of being hosted in Hebron, and most of the prayers we do, of course, in the Cave of the Patriarchs. Tzachi, we can’t hear you well. Can you hear me better now? A little. On Sabbath afternoon, on the Sabbath of Chayei Sarah, the afternoon prayer is fixed at the Beit Hadassah synagogue, in front of the curtain that Yaakov commemorated. And it always reminds me דווקא of two stories from after the yeshiva high school. One story is that Meni and I came to visit during basic training. We were still before our own basic training; we enlisted a month later, and we came to visit during basic training. And for me it was kind of a shock to see that this wasn’t exactly a Bnei Akiva camp; here they were abusing the guys. And we went in with them to eat dinner, and they had to stand first before they started eating—it was pretty rough treatment. It was amazing to see how Yaakov, in his own way, in his special quietness, simply really did not belong to the whole atmosphere of the basic training there. And the other thing that is very, very engraved in my mind is that the day after the murder, it was Friday night, and on Sunday morning I arrived at the squadron. I was then two months before the end of flight course, and I got to the squadron, went into the changing room to put on my flight suit, and in the changing room there was Yosef Ziv, from the squadron that carried out the evacuation of the wounded on Friday night. And he happened to be in the changing room too, and he said, “You know, I was scrambled on the Sabbath, and it was guys like you, religious guys like you.” That phrase, “guys like you, religious guys like you,” was etched in my head, and really then I understood that Yaakov was among them. Later I got the phone call saying Yaakov was among them, and Rami and Hanoch—they were really Yaakov’s friends—I was also in the room in Petachim, and they spoke a lot about how he was a model of order and cleanliness. Regarding Hovav, I wasn’t aware of it at the time; it only connected for me later. He fell on the night between Thursday and Friday in the first week of the Lebanon War. And on Friday I flew already—Friday at a relatively late hour, toward the Sabbath. I was scrambled to bring supplies. He fell in the Sultan Yaakov area, a little northeast of Lake Qaraoun, and I was scrambled to bring supplies to an area a bit more west of there, but north, really very close already to the Beirut-Damascus road, to a force that was there. I don’t think it was exactly Hovav’s force. Then we brought them supplies, and on the way back we took five dead soldiers in the belly of the aircraft. I don’t think—in retrospect, I don’t think Yaakov was among them; that was an earlier period. When I got with those dead soldiers to Machanaim, it was already close to the start of the Sabbath, and we also had to refuel and wanted to bring supplies. They told us, “If you can still make it before last light to bring supplies to the force in the area of Lake Qaraoun, then fine, but if you’re already entering full darkness then no,” because they were worried about missiles. And we wanted to use the few minutes we had before it became completely dark, and in that time we needed both to refuel and unload the five dead who were in the belly. The refueling truck was already waiting for us at the strip in Machanaim, and we refueled immediately, but the rabbinate team didn’t come to unload the dead. By the time they arrived, it already caused us some delay, and I was very angry with them because they thought—they didn’t digest that this was war, and that in war it isn’t more important to unload the dead than to preserve the Sabbath. But those are my memories connected with Hovav, so that’s how the connection to Hovav came together for me, even though Hovav wasn’t among them. That’s all.

[Speaker H] Okay, anyone else? We’ve already gone over time, but it’s interesting and fascinating and also moving to see everyone and hear everyone.

[Speaker N] Is anyone here from the Landau family? Is anyone from the Landau family with us and speaking?

[Speaker H] There’s some nephew, but they can’t really—they speak less.

[Speaker Q] About Rami I wanted to say one thing, a very interesting point. The family, after all, is a Djerban family. Can you hear me? We hear you, we hear you. It’s a Djerban family, and Rami—with everything Miki said, that he was a very, very intelligent man—he also had this point of simple faith, and his connection to Djerban Judaism and Djerban tradition was very strong in him. And when he got to know Rabbi Mazuz, he came and told me about Rabbi Mazuz from Bnei Brak, how the method and the Djerban way of learning were very, very deeply instilled in him. And by the way, Ephraim too, very much—I was very connected there, I spent a great deal of time at his house, we were there a lot, and he was also my school principal. There was also the—what?

[Speaker H] You were neighbors, as they say, yes.

[Speaker Q] Right, literally neighbors. And Djerban learning was very important to them. He said that in their home the Chayei Adam would arrive there, and the Maharsha would arrive there. They were very analytical in their learning. And for Rami that point was very, very important. It mattered a lot to him to restore and revive that Djerban tradition. He didn’t merit more than that, but it’s a very interesting point. And his simple faith, with all his powerful intellect—his faith was very simple and very connected, very rooted. That’s something I remember very strongly from all the many things we talked and discussed about. Yes. I met Uzi a few years ago in the military cemetery—it’s in the cemetery in Haifa—but it’s interesting to see Golan, really interesting to see Golan; we haven’t met in a long time. But with Uzi I met in the military cemetery when I came to my father’s grave, and that’s where we met.

[Speaker H] Anyone else? Miki, is this being recorded?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I’ll send the recording at the end, no problem.

[Speaker H] And we’ll send it both to the family and to the class group. Very good.

[Speaker U] Hello, thank you for inviting me.

[Speaker H] With pleasure, a pleasure if one can say that. Thank you, thank you, I listened. Thank you to the family, to everyone. Thank you very much to everyone who—

[Speaker Y] Goodbye. Thank you.

[Speaker H] May we meet at happy occasions.

[Speaker Y] Only at happy occasions, amen. Thank you, thank you.

[Speaker H] Happy Independence Day to everyone.

[Speaker F] Uzi, thank you very much, thank you very much, all the best.

[Speaker Y] Good tidings to everyone.

[Speaker H] Dani, how are you, Dani? We can’t hear you, unmute.

[Speaker Z] Thank God, I’m perfectly fine, yes. I had something to say, but I’m too emotional, so I can’t speak because of that today. But I enjoyed listening to you, and thank you very much for this gathering.

[Speaker F] Shlomo, Shlomo, how are you?

[Speaker H] Sitting quietly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We can’t hear you, you’re muted. Mute. I opened it for you.

[Speaker 27] There, now you can hear me. Yes, can hear, can hear. Of course, this is Shlomo Dafna. I also had a lot to say, especially since I spent many nights at Rami Bukhris’s house and also at Yaakov Zimmerman’s, but you know, with the whole event and everything, it’s not easy to speak. What you said about Rami’s father—blessed are you. Rami—he was an unbelievable personality, no doubt, no one like him. More power to you too, Miki, for the lessons on Ein Ayah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Thank you. May we merit only—

[Speaker 27] to meet at happy occasions too.

[Speaker 28] With God’s help. Inshallah. It can also be not only at happy occasions.

[Speaker 29] Hi.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rachel, hello, right, we can’t see you. Where are you?

[Speaker 29] Hi.

[Speaker 30] All this time I can see you, Dafna. How are you? Fine. Really, we should meet, we don’t need to wait for happy occasions. Exactly.

[Speaker 29] If only the State of Israel would let us move around, then gladly.

[Speaker 30] Exactly.

[Speaker 27] Shai said he allows you to Zoom, not to move. Yes. Miki and Shai, more power to you for all the organizing. Today it’s all so simple, a few mouse clicks and it works, you know. Yes, but to think of it and all that—very nice.

[Speaker H] Okay.

[Speaker N] Shlomo, where do you live today?

[Speaker H] Beit Shemesh.

[Speaker N] Beit Shemesh? Oh, nice.

[Speaker H] Just so you know, Shlomo’s son finished high school with my grandson. Well, not the oldest son, one of the younger ones, but still. Yes, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m about to finish with your great-grandson soon.

[Speaker H] My great-grandson not yet, but maybe you’ll get your professorship with him, we’ll see.

[Speaker 31] Rachel, I think one of your daughters participated in one of Miki’s Zoom lessons, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, there was.

[Speaker 30] No, it was Shlomo who participated, he helped him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We were also at your gathering. Yes, thank you very much, right. Okay. Okay. Haggai, how are you, Haggai? I’m closing the meeting, and may you all have a happy Independence Day.

[Speaker 29] Amen, amen.

[Speaker L] Thank you, Miki.