I Will Always Remember You

As sun down the day before Erev Yom HaZichron - memorial day for the fallen of the IDF- approaches we in Israel sadly remember; our brothers and sisters, our fathers our uncles and aunts who unselfishly gave to create and defend OUR nation. 

For those who mourn it is always a time of memory. 

As the days after Passover pass occaisionally your mind reminds you of the memory of the person that once sat in that space around the Seder table. As the mind is given sometimes, especially in the evening, you smile and remember. 

Sometimes it is a song he liked sometimes it is simply triggered. In the stillness you hear his voice his laugh and in your mind you see that smiling face. Sometimes you see a boy walking, running or playing like him on the street. 

For me, my wife and my children, Yom HaZichron is a special day. For we took it upon ourselves as a bond of honor to be the family of a fellow American immigrant and a young man who was, like a little brother to me, David Sklar z"l.  

David Sklar z"l was the son Chaya Sklar z"l who was mortally wounded on the outskirts of Beirut in June of 1982 in the "First War in Lebanon". 

After the death of his mother David Sklar z"l has no family left in Israel and it was with honor that I and my family readily volunteered to "adopt" him.

David was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on the 4th of June 1962 and at the age of 9 his "family" made Aliyah to Hertzliya. 

David and his family; his older sister Deborah and his mother Chaya, who was divorced, moved to Maalot a very short time before I had entered the IDF as a "Chayal Boded" in September of 1976.

His mother Chaya Sklar z"l worked at that time as a secretary to Elaine Kopp - later Levitt another recent divorcee, had also recently move to Maalot from Jerusalem with her two teenaged children Mike and Marla. Elaine was in charge of a Jewish Agency Volunteer for Israel program.

It was Chaya z"l, who stopped to talk with me as I walked home from the "WIZO" laundry center early that Thursday morning while on a 72 hour pass from the IDF during "Operation Litani" in March of 1978. 

Chaya, the omnipresent "Jewish mother", told me that there was a new single American Olah (Immigrant) named Rena who had made Aliyah from Far Rockaway NY who had recently arrived in Ma'alot. Chaya and Elaine both urged me that I should "Make an effort" to meet Rena.

It is a common story that our children all know of how I waited that fateful Thursday evening, on the "advise of Chaya", for the transit that transported the workers home from Nahariyah Hospital to arrive in front of the Merkaz Klita. As I was exhausted from being in Lebanon I fell asleep on the bench. 

Rena ,a registered nurse(RN) who had just begun to work at Nahariyah Hospital, was returned "home" after working an evening shift at 10:30 PM. The noise of the slamming of the sliding door of the van woke me.

As I sat on the bench opposite the building I allowed her a few moments to enter her apartment before going into the building and knocked on her door to do as Chaya advised; "Introduce yourself".  

I knocked on the door and after a few moments Rena opened the door slightly and peeked out. I quickly said; "Hi my name is Yakov, and Chaya said we should meet." Whereby Rena instantly replied; "Hi, I am Rena and I am tired" and she closed and locked the door. That was March 23rd 1978 we were married January 16th 1979 in Ma'alot. We are the only two American Jews so far who have met and married in Ma'alot.

David, his sister Debra and Chaya lived in the "New Binyan HaMalit"-"the elevator building" near today's Shouk (Marketplace). It is the only multi (8) storied building to have been built in Maalot and it's saving grace one can say or novelty, was that it had an elevator.

It is located on the street below where my first apartment was. As a "New Single Immigrant" I was "issued" a small one room 42 sqm apartment by the Amidar Government Housing Authority across the hall from my neighbor and good friend Kenny Sherman. 

Kenny was also a new inductee to the IDF but he was in the paratroopers as  a Chayal Boded. When we happened to be home on leave at the same time we would sit and talk for hours drinking beer and listening to my extensive album collection.

David had only recently entered Yad Netan Junior High School near Akko and he was like a little brother to me. David would relate to me his experiences and secrets in life as any younger brother would to an older one. Our friendship was close since it was quite evident he was badly treated and ignored as a child by his father who abandoned them before divorcing Chaya. 

David was in need of an "older" brother a father figure to be there for him. And yes my being there also alone with no family also drew me close to him as well.

In the months before my induction into the IDF I was working at a local factory and in the evening when I came home sometimes David would come around to visit and talk since I had a fairly extensive collection of books and albums that I had brought with me from the USA. 

Upstairs in the same Amidar apartment building 431 Jabotinsky lived Ilana Black a divorced woman from England who was a painter. Ilana had a teenage daughter Sharon who was away at a boarding school. Ilana would invite Kenny and me to share Shabbat evening meals with her. Occasionally, David and Sharon -when she was not in school would  come to visit, to talk or just to listen to the music.

As a 14 year old fatherless boy growing up in Ma'alot, David drew close to me as though a "big brother" because of our background as Americans and of course the ability to converse in English. 

On Shabbat our very small "Anglo -Saxon" community would meet for a football, softball or baseball game near the water tower (symbol of the township) of Ma'alot near the infamous Netiv Meir Elementary school -scene of the horrific Massacre in Maalot in May of 1974.

After I completed my army service in 1978 I had worked in factories in warehouse and supply management. I was not thrilled with the job and the pay. So, in April of 1982 the wife and I decided to go back to the USA for me to complete my University degree that I had stopped when I supposedly left to "volunteer" on Kibbutz for "only" six months in Sept. 1974.

Rena and I knew that "tensions were high" and we Israelis were embittered by the highly apparent and consistent failure of UNIFIL to prevent terrorist incursions into Israel. 

It was only a matter of time that something serious would occur because of the constant threats and intermediate mortar and artillery shelling from what was euphemistically called "Fatahland" - the area south of the Litani river in Lebanon. 

Over the period of time since "Black September" of 1970 when the PLO was kicked out of Jordan and became entrenched in "Fatahland" in southern Lebanon. 

The UN, like today, has consistantly failed in their mandate to prevent terrorism. 

In 1982 "Fatahland" had become a PLO "no-go zone" after the Lebanese "Civil War" in 1975. Lebanese civilian residents had fled and the neutered Lebanese Government had given Fatah free run over the area.

As David Sklar z"l sat there on our couch with our son David, I could feel his deep sadness of our upcoming departure. My last words to him were like those of any "Older big brother" to watch out. I warned him to make sure and promise me that he would wear his body-armour vest!

As I mentioned we left Israel with our oldest son David in April of 1982 and moved in with my parents in Birmingham, Alabama, so I could restart University to complete my degree. We choose to go to Birmingham mainly because of the expense of University and available housing. 

Rena was able to find immediate employment as an RN in the Children's Hospital in the large University of Alabama Birmingham Medical Center, as we looked for an Apartment. We finally found a nice apartment not far from my parents and moved in. 

I had just started my first semester in a local Junior College to "get back into the rut of learning" when the conflict began. At first, I had thought of going back to my unit, but my commanding officer said for me to stay in the USA. 

I was not at home when the wife Rena received the phone call that fateful June day. The call had come from another ex-American friend Daphne Even-Zohar who was living in her father's apartment on the floor below our apartment building located at 327 Keren Hayesod Street in Ma'alot. Daphne called to inform us of the sad news about David's death. 

When I came home from school and Rena told me that David was killed. All I could think of was to rush back to my unit but I realized that to do so would overturn all the plans we had made to improve our family. We stayed and we of course missed the burial and the "Shiva- mourning period" in Israel.  Both Rena and I mourned his passing.

Members of David Sklar z"l IDF tank crew

I later learned from his commanding officer and his tank crew the sad events of his death....

It was a hot July morning in Southern Beirut. There was a lull in the fighting. His tank was parked to guard a road block. 

David had eagerly volunteered to be in "communication" -to listen to the radio chatter. 

The commander of the tank crew related to me that David sat outside on the engine cowling of the hot tank on the front near the driver seat.

The Palestinian "Alphabets"-one of the various terrorist organizations- had been raining down mortar fire all day and all the previous night. The tank crew was exhausted. They had been "buckled up" inside their old stifling humid modified US Made M-60 Abrams tank during the shelling. 

Suddenly the shelling ceased. Evidently the PLO terrorists had exhausted their supply of mortar rounds and they had to resupply. The lull lasted several hours, so the soldiers began to relax.

It was hot and very humid the soldiers became too lax. They opened or removed their old heavy Viet Nam War vintage surplus -read US AID - body Armor vests.... suddenly they could hear the echo of the "thump" sound as a mortar round is fired. David who was wearing the VRC helmet of the communications didn't hear it. The round landed nearby throwing a long piece of shrapnel from the 122 Soviet made mortar round that pierced his body as he unsuspectingly sat there.

His fellow crew members rushed him across the crossroads underfire to the IDF medical unit casualty station. The doctor immediately saw the long shard and how it had seared and cauterized in David's chest. He called for immediate air evac to Rambam in Haifa. A special medic evac helicopter that had been on standby in the air arrived.

David lingered on for another 24 hours or so...his mother and sister were able to see him before he died...and was buried in the Military part of the cemetery of Ma'alot which is between the Arab village of Tarshiah and Moshav Meona where the photo of his tank crew, Rena and I was taken.

Chaya angered over David's death argued non-stop with Deborah the daughter and she became fed up and left for America. 

After David's death Chaya grief stricken had become very religious and extremous in her views and had moved to Kiryat Arba. She died of cancer not long after and is also buried in the civilian part of the cemetery in Ma'alot.

Because David had no family to represent him on Yom HaZichron (Memorial Day)  I notified the Municipality that my family would gladly "adopt" him and represent him at the ceremonies on Remembrance Day. 

All our children who have also served in the IDF have willingly participated in the evening memorial day for the fallen ceremony by lighting his candle on the stage over the years. 

We do not want David's sacrifice to be forgotten and we as fellow American Immigrants took the mantle with pride to be his family.

Though most of my children have moved on to the "Greater Tel Aviv" area the wife and I will still attend the ceremony in his honored memory.