Jordan Covin Cooper: A lone soldier personifying strength and resilience - comment

Jordan Covin Cooper, an IDF lone soldier from Garnet Valley, Pennsylvania who died suddenly when his family came to visit on August 12, was described by his army comrades as “an Israeli Rambo.” Jordan, born on October 25, 1998, made aliyah from the US in 2018 via the Garin Tzabar program for lone soldiers. After completing his military service in the Nahal Palhan’s Sayeret special forces, he volunteered to train fighters in Ukraine. When the October 7 massacre occurred, he returned to Israel the next day. He served more than 200 days as an IDF reservist on the northern border, completing his round of duty on July 18.

He rented an apartment in Rishon Lezion and decided to stay in the country, marry his girlfriend, and join the Border Police. His parents, Marla Covin Cooper and Ross Cooper, brother Ethan, and grandfather Jerry Covin came to visit him, buying him halva in the shuk, which the vendor insisted did not contain nuts, to which Jordan was extremely allergic. Despite administering an EpiPen after he ate the halva and collapsed, an ambulance team was unable to revive him.

Following the family’s appeal on social media for the public to “accompany him on his final journey so that he won’t be alone in death,” thousands packed Rishon Lezion’s Ganei Esther Cemetery on the night after Tisha B’Av for Jordan’s funeral. “This [solidarity] is the reason he came to this country,” his father told them. His brother said, “Jordan is the truest embodiment of selflessness I have ever known.” 

Mourning a lone soldier

My sister, Debbie Linde Sandler, who attended the funeral, said: “Listening to the crowds reciting the prayer for the departed and the psalms in unison and with such fervor was a life-changing moment for all of us. We were all comforted by the sublime sense of brotherhood displayed by Am Yisrael escorting Jordan from this world to the next.”

Rabbi David Geffen, who knew Jordan’s mother from Wilmington, Delaware, where she had been president of the Congregation Beth Shalom synagogue at which he served, paid a condolence call the day after the funeral. “I walked into the apartment in Tel Aviv where the family were sitting shiva for a wonderful and committed lone soldier,” Geffen said. “The feelings of great sadness were there, but the family had been so moved by the Israelis who came out for his funeral that 24 hours later it was still overwhelming. I was struck by the number of soldiers in uniform who were there.”

Jordan’s mother said, “We were very proud of our son but frightened as well. When he told us he was moving to Israel to fight in the IDF as a lone soldier, we were scared, as any parents would be. However, his commitment to do this act of valor was so very strong; we knew he would do it.”

In an article published by Congregation Beth Shalom upon completion of his service in the IDF, Jordan reflected: “I’ve climbed the highest mountains in the Golan, roasted in the hottest desert in the Negev, forged through the thorniest brush of the North, and followed in the footsteps of countless Israeli soldiers who have made the same arduous journey as warriors in an elite unit.” He concluded by saying that on Yom Hazikaron (Remembrance Day), he planned to visit the grave at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl Military Cemetery of Michael Levin, a lone soldier from Philadelphia who fell while serving in Lebanon on August 1, 2006, and the resting places of other warriors who had given their lives for the Zionist dream. “For me, this simple act honors those who have come before... by demonstrating my commitment as a guardian of Israel, a shomer, so their sacrifices will not be in vain,” he wrote.

May Jordan Covin Cooper rest in peace, and may we take pride in this hero of the Jewish people who personified Israeli strength, resolve and resilience.