Death, resilience in Elazar: A Gush Etzion settlement that lost 6 people since Oct. 7

Arriving in the Gush Etzion settlement of Elazar, one wouldn’t know anything was amiss.

Picturesque and inviting, it’s long been a home for the National Religious, close to Jerusalem with a great quality of life.

But, in the annus horribilis since October 7, grief and resilience have taken over the town. Six of its sons and daughters have fallen defending Israel.

• Rinat Zagdon, 23, was murdered at the Supernova music festival on October 7, 2023.
• Staff Sgt. Hallel Shmuel Saadon, 21, was killed on October 7, 2023, while battling the Hamas invasion near Kibbutz Sufa. He served in the Nahal Brigade Reconnaissance Unit.
• Sgt. Maj. (res.) David Schwartz, 26, was killed by anti-tank fire in Khan Yunis on January 8. He was a combat soldier in the 8219th Combat Engineering Battalion of the 551st Hatzei Ha’esh (Arrows of Fire) Brigade.
• Capt. (res.) Ariel Mordechay Wollfstal, 28, a combat officer in Battalion 9206, Brigade 205, fell in battle in Gaza on January 23. He was one of 21 soldiers killed when a building collapsed on them.
• Sgt. Maj. (res.) Nahman Natan Hertz, 31, was killed in Metulla on June 5 in a Hezbollah drone strike together with Master Sergeant (res.) Dan Kamkagi from Kfar Oranim. They were serving in patrol battalion 6551.
• Staff Sgt. Dotan Shimon, 21, was killed in an explosion in Rafah on Sept. 17 together with three other soldiers. He served in the Shaked Battalion in the Givati Brigade.

For the families of the fallen and the community at large, their anguish is inconsolable.

Yet 30 of the settlement’s 17-year-olds rallied together this summer – with borrowed bulldozers and pickaxes, they toiled from 4 p.m. to sunset for weeks to landscape a barren hillside into a memorial garden commemorating the fallen. Their improvised park, called Helkat haGevurah (Heroism Plot), incorporates an ancient spring. A QR code on a memorial plaque provides details about the fallen. A sign proclaims, “The eternal people is not afraid of a long road.”

Those secondary school seniors await their call-up notice to report to the IDF inductions centers.

A HANDSOME DECK was recently built alongside the security outpost named after IDF Maj. Yochai Kalangel, who in 2015 became the first soldier from Elazar to fall in the line of duty. Together with St.- Sgt. Dor Haim Nini of Shtulim, he was immolated when his patrol vehicle was destroyed by antitank missiles fired from Lebanon. The deck faces the Kalangel family home and the concertina wire fence that encircles the town.

Kalangel’s death came as Elazar was celebrating its 40th year. Established in 1975 as a cooperative moshav by a group of immigrants from North America and England, it became a yishuv kehilati (communal settlement) in 1990.

Strikingly, stone-clad retaining walls are now being constructed in front of Elazar as Highway 60 is widened into a four-lane road. The 12-km. expansion of the highway, called the Tunnels Road, extends from the Rosemaryn junction in Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood south to Elazar, Efrat, and other commuter suburbs. 

The project’s two new tunnels, one 300 meters long and the other nearly a kilometer, symbolize Israel’s desire to strengthen the strategic settlements of Gush Etzion. They are burrowed under the West Bank city of Beit Jala adjoining Bethlehem.

The vast infrastructure upgrade was of little interest to the thousands of mourners who thronged the military section of the Kfar Etzion cemetery on September 18 for the internment of Staff Sgt. Dotan Shimon. The strikingly handsome youth, 21, served in the Shaked Battalion in the Givati Brigade. He was one of four soldiers killed in a battle with Hamas terrorists in Rafah. Now his smiling portrait printed on vinyl is draped over a map of the town by Elazar’s main gate.

Elazar: A settlement scarred by the collective trauma of October 7, 2023

There isn’t a family among the Yishuv’s 2,615 residents that hasn’t been scarred by the collective trauma.

THE HORROR began when Rinat “Rini” Zagdon was murdered at the Nova music festival. In the chaos following the massacre near Kibbutz Re’im and the Gaza Strip frontier, Zagdon’s fate was unclear. Her corpse was only identified on October 13.

She had been shot alongside her friend Tiferet Lapidot, also 23. The Canadian-Israeli living in Australia had returned to her hometown of Harish for the Tishrei holy days.

Zagdon’s parents, Mechola and Moriel, show a photo of their late daughter with riotous curls and a mile-wide smile.

“One of the things that most characterized Rinat was that she made space for everyone,” her father, Moriel, told Channel 14 news. “One of her mottos in life that she always said was, ‘Ima, Abba, look into the heart, not how a person looks, the heart is where they really are.’ That was Rinat.”

Her mother Mechola added that Rinat “was full of joy, she was always laughing, always making people happy, and that’s what brought her enormous circles of friends of all types.”

“She also had a very beautiful voice. She expressed herself through her voice. Anytime someone said something, it would remind her of a song and she would sing it,” Mechola told the TV network. “She succeeded in her 23 years in making a big impact.”

Rinat’s brother, Bnaya, wrote on Facebook that when she was traveling in India, she would ask him if he missed her, “and I would say ‘of course I miss you,’ and you would ask ‘but why?’ I answered, ‘I love you and I’m your brother and I want you to come home already.’”

“I’m sorry that I asked you to come back… I’m sorry that I thought only about myself. I was just scared that something would happen to you there, and I wanted you a little closer to me. You are my music in life.”

Rinat’s circle of friends embroidered a wedding canopy in her memory. The chuppah is loaned out gratis. Alongside the mourning, in the last year, Elazar has celebrated five weddings and two engagements. Two families became first-time grandparents just before Rosh Hashana.

LIKE THE Zagdons, Dotan Shimon’s parents, Yaron and Orit, relate sorrowful details about their son’s too-brief life. Adding to their heartbreak, a decade earlier their daughter Nofar was killed in a tragic traffic accident at the entrance to Elazar – hence the need for road improvements.

Though buried in the Kfar Etzion cemetery’s civilian plot, her grave is close to her brother’s in the military section. Now only Guy, the last of the Shimon family’s three adult children, remains alive.

Though the seven-day shiva (mourning period) has long ended, a steady stream of family and well-wishers passes through the Shimons’ elegant home overlooking the Judean Hills. A shrine-like montage of Dotan is arranged by the front door. The family asks me not to take photos without their permission. 

Waiting for Yaron and Orit to complete a meeting with National Insurance officials – even after death, bureaucracy grinds on. Feeling that my presence is a ghoulish intrusion, I ask about Dotan’s life. His parents describe their son’s exemplary work as a leader with the Bnei Akiva youth movement. They recall his deep attachment, indeed a mystical bond, with the Land of Israel. They note he once came home with a bag of soil he had collected and launched into a lyrical poem about how Jews are rooted in the Holy Land.

“He was a happy boy, embracing friends,” offers Yaron. “He was the glue holding his circle of friends.” Wistfully, he adds, “We’re having a hard time adjusting that he’s not here. I’m not thinking ahead. I still think he’ll come home with his buddies. Looking forward, the horizon is too far away.”

Wiping away tears, Orit says, “I don’t believe it.” She grimaces, “I’ve gone completely crazy. Since Nofar… I’ve acted out and insulted people. Perhaps this is a good time to request forgiveness.”

Both express thanks to their families and neighbors who have been at their side continuously since officers of the IDF bereavement unit came to their door like the Angel of Death.

CHAVA KOCHAV, Elazar’s community coordinator, is proud of the new park built by the town’s youth. “That’s the way to build a new generation.” More than 150 people came to the dedication in August, she notes.

I marvel at the hundreds of trees planted at the site.

Reflecting on David’s lament over Jonathan and King Saul, “Tell it not in Gath, proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines be glad, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised rejoice,” (2 Samuel 1:20) I ask long-time Elazar resident and educator/tour guide Akiva Werber whether mourning should be public or private. 

Is publishing a tear-soaked report like this going to give schadenfreude and succor to Hamas and Hezbollah?

His reply is unequivocal. “This is not for the Philistines. It’s for the Jewish people. We need to hear about the great bravery and devotion of our soldiers [who fell].” 

Yaron Shimon is adamant. “What an education they received to defend the state. People should know.”