Canadian among fallen soldiers honoured

SHA’AR HAGAI, Israel — North Americans who have fallen in Israel in the line of duty or during acts of terror were honoured at the annual Remembering the Fallen ceremony last Wednesday.

Sharon Levy, the mother of fallen  Israel Defence Forces soldier Noam Levy, chats with Canadian defence attaché Col. R.G. (Geordie) Elms.

A large and tearful group of friends and family members of fallen North Americans attended the ceremony at the AACI Memorial Forest near Sha’ar HaGai Junction, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.


The mystery of the fallen Canadian

The memorial was organized by the Association for Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI).

“This ceremony is our opportunity to acknowledge as a community that these people and their families have made the supreme sacrifice so that we can live in an independent and strong Jewish state,” says Donna Grushka, co-chair of the AACI memorial committee.

Four Americans – Ari Gabbin, Carmi Elan, Uriel Peretz Liwerant and Dagan Moshe Wertman – perished this year, as did one Canadian, Israel Defence Forces Staff Sgt. Noam Adin Rechter Levy. Their names were inscribed on memorial plaques.

Levy, 20, a Montreal-born soldier, was killed on a military mission in Bir Zeit, a village north of Ramallah in the West Bank, on May 7.

Although the final IDF chief of staff’s report has yet to be issued, an initial investigation revealed that Levy, a medic with the Duchifat Battalion in the Kfir Brigade, was killed during a regular daily operation, in a scuffle with Arab student rioters. The rifle of one of the soldiers in his company discharged and sent a bullet into Levy’s temple, killing him almost instantly.

Noam’s parents, Rabbi David and Sharon Levy, were at their home in Mitzpeh Natofa in the Lower Galilee when the pair of reservists came at 6:20 a.m. to notify them of what had happened.

“We were the middle of building a house, so at first I thought it was the construction workers,” said Sharon Levy, who is originally from Montreal. “But when I looked at the clock and saw the hour, I realized what it was. No one had to say anything.”

Noam, the fourth of five siblings – Ma’ayan, 27; Yaffa, 25; Shira, 23, and Yedidya, 16 – made aliyah along with his family in September 1993, at the age of eight, from Kitchener, Ont., where David Levy had served as the community’s rabbi.

Not only had the Levys always wanted to live in Israel, but direct connections to the Holocaust in both Sharon and Rabbi Levy’s family histories gave their decision to make aliyah a strong ideological basis, as well.

This family history was particularly moving to Noam, who was close to all of his grandparents, Bernice and the late Zelig Joseph of Montreal and Edith Rechter-Levy and Marcus Levy of Morgantown, W.Va., as well as his uncle, Lawrence Joseph, who attended university in Israel and volunteered during the Yom Kippur War. Noam’s middle name, Rechter, was in honour of his grandfather, who was killed in Auschwitz and whose entire extended family was wiped out.

Noam was eager to participate in the March of the Living program before his induction into the IDF. “It was really important to him to go,” his father said. “His friends have commented about his behaviour during the trip. It changed him – he was extremely mature, reflective and sober.”

The family’s choice to live in Mitzpeh Natofa, a small community just west of Tiberias, was an ideological decision, as well. “We wanted to move somewhere that was particularly relevant, either to the Galil or to the Negev,” Rabbi Levy said. They settled on Mitzpeh Natofa because it was a warm and welcoming small community.

They also chose Mitzpeh Natofa to make aliyah easier on the children. “We thought having a smaller group of friends to choose from would provide a better cushion, since small groups of friends are more solid,” Rabbi Levy said. “And that’s exactly what happened. The youth networks here are incredibly strong.”

Noam was part of a tight group of friends who adored him. “He had a real joie de vivre,” Sharon Levy said. “He brought the room alive.”

He touched the lives of many who were not his close friends, as well. His parents were not surprised to see an older falafel-stand owner and a shoe salesman from Tiberias at Noam’s shivah. “He was like the centre of a wheel, where all the spokes meet,” his father said. “No matter what circle he was in, he managed to connect to all different spheres and groups. He had a gift for connecting with people.”

Noam brought this gift to bear on his work at a nearby kids’ club, where he coached basketball. “He was caring and possessed excellent ‘physical intelligence,’” his mother said.

Basketball was his sport of choice, and he attended basketball camps in Morgantown, W.Va.,  where his father is from originally, and at the Wingate Institute in Netanya.

Noam, a graduate of the Yeshiva High School in Tiberias, took school seriously. “I think he would have ended up in medicine,” Rabbi Levy said. In Noam’s last year in the army, after being promoted to the position of battalion medic, his parents had witnessed the emergence of a new-found passion in their son.

“He loved what he was doing. It was important to him, and he really connected with the type of responsibility the position entailed,” his mother said. “I think he found his calling.”

He brought great humanist values to his work as a medic. Just a few weeks before he was killed, he tried, unsuccessfully, to resuscitate a Palestinian terrorist who had been seriously injured in an IDF operation. “The guy died in the end,” Rabbi Levy said. “But Noam took his responsibilities very seriously and had a doctor’s disposition.”

Noam’s greatest driving force, however, was Zionism. “He saw great significance in being here and defending Israel for the Jewish people,” his mother said. “He was very clear in his mind about our need to be here.”

In spite of Noam’s death, his parents, too, have not wavered in this belief. “On the day of Noam’s death someone said, ‘I told my son he should leave Israel!’ Why? Tragedies don’t happen in Canada, in Spain, in France, in the U.S.?,” Sharon Levy said. “We don’t agree with this line of thinking. Besides, what, the Jewish people haven’t dealt with tragedy over the years?”

The Levys’ hope now is to perpetuate their son’s life by dedicating their efforts to a cause that was particularly important to him: organ donation. Noam had signed an organ donor card. “It gave him a lot of satisfaction to know that he could help somebody, even in death,” said Sharon Levy, adding that Noam’s corneas have been donated to two blind people.

“I think each of us is here for a reason, and the fact that the person himself isn’t here anymore doesn’t diminish his reason for having been here – if anything, it heightens it,” she said. “There is a lot of misunderstanding in Israel about the technical and halachic aspects of organ donation, and we will work to raise awareness and advocate on behalf of this cause.”

The ceremony for fallen North Americans included an address by Rabbi Levi Lauer, the founding executive director of ATZUM (Avodot Tzdaka U’Mishpat) Justice Works, a foundation established in 2001 to address urgent human need and social ills in Israel.

In addition to friends and family members, the ceremony was attended by Col. R.G. (Geordie) Elms, defence attaché from the Canadian Embassy; Alex Daniels, director of the American Center in Jerusalem and first secretary at the U.S. Embassy, and Lt.-Col. Beni Brosh, from the Home Front Command, as well as representatives from the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and the Nativ and Young Judea youth movements.