With quiet determination, Boys Town Jerusalem High School students walked over a mile to Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery on Israel’s Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror. Here they honored fallen soldiers, including recently slain BTJ grads Sergeant Benyamin Yona, Corporal Ofir Testa, and Sergeant Ariel Sosnov, before returning to BTJ’s schoolwide Memorial Day ceremony.
Mourning through unity and family sacrifice
Together, the student body mourned the fallen, as they shared the pain and courage of fellow classmates. Eleventh grader Ariel Levi solemnly lit a memorial torch in memory of his heroic uncle IDF Colonel Roi Yosef Levi, father of five, killed battling terrorists on October 7, 2023.
BTJ Graduate and IDF Commander shares firsthand testimony
IDF Infantry Squadron Commander Amitay Cohen, 22, a 2020 BTJ grad, recalled his classmates Benyamin Yona (“always smiling and optimistic”), Ofir Testa (“a Torah scholar and hero”), and tens of other friends killed in the war. He then shared his own harrowing experiences from the war’s outbreak to his grave battle injuries.
Lessons of strength, resilience, and purpose
Just hours after the terrorist invasion, Amitay, a medic in the IDF Reserves, voluntarily joined his commander to drive to the embattled south. Under enemy fire, Amitay first treated 30 civilians shot by terrorists. Some died in his arms. Among the earliest to reach the devastating Nova Festival site, he dragged 150-200 of the dead to a safe tent, preventing terrorists from kidnapping bodies to Gaza for ransom. When he reached the slaughter on nearby Kibbutz Reim, he struck armed terrorists in his house-to-house search for survivors. In Kibbutz Beeri, Amitay witnessed the horrific sights of murdered children and other atrocities. Describing his subsequent two serious wounds and grueling rehabilitation, he urged BTJ students, “Do all you can to be better people. Pray. Study. Honor your parents and your friends. Be united, and nothing can stop us.”