Son of Dorit and Giora, Merom was born on October 7, 1982 in Moshav Avigdor near Kiryat Malachi, the third generation of the founders of the moshav. He was educated at Mevo’ot Elementary School in Avigdor and at the high school in Beer Tuvia. “A handsome and conscientious boy, Merom was decent and moral, intelligent and a critical thinker,” described Marom Nir Tzoran, a member of the moshav. Giora, Merom’s father noted, “He was handsome , tall, courteous and loved Eretz Yisrael, just as Israeli youth are described in the books and stories of the War of Independence. ” Merom was a scholar and a knowledgeable man, who used to utter his words without fear, and with a developed sense of criticism. Nava Tamir, a high school teacher, said: “Merom was a student that any teacher dreams she will have as a student. A special flower, a flower in the tenth grade who stubbornly insists on his own way, surprising you with knowledge. In my words, the leaves and flowers are opened one after the other, and I have the right to stand in front of Merom’s integrity, to read in his independent writing, to experience his love for dogs, to talk to him about books and people, to marvel at his interest in nature. “Merom’s love for Israel and nature knew no boundaries . “We used to play for hours in the monopoly,” recalled Yishai Sabag. Naturally, Merom was very active in the tour groups, working as a guide, and regularly traveled the country. Another proof of Merom’s developed ecological awareness is his acceptance of the decision of the school’s management to cut down the wood grove at the site to build a cultural center and library in the area. “Merom criticized me for this,” said Menashe Samira, “Merom’s concern and the desire to contribute to society were also expressed in a complex task that he undertook in the same year to help a girl with limitations in the seventh grade.” Although he knew that the chances there will be little success, “said David Hassin, the junior high school principal.” He invested all his energy and energy in the mission, with unending patience. We would sit for hours in the hayloft and talk about everything, “recalls Jesse wistfully,” economics, politics, security, the United States, the Vietnam War, girls. Especially girls … “Shani Omiel, his girlfriend in the last two years of his life, met Merom on the lawn of the school, and a great love flared between them. “We were so connected to each other.” A man of peace and yet, committed to his military service, Merom planned to follow in the footsteps of his father, who fought in the ranks of the Golani Brigade during the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War, and in the wake of his brother Yair, a Golani fighter who was wounded in Lebanon. Thus, upon his enlistment, on March 19, 2001, Merom joined the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade and began his combat. “On the day of the draft, I wrote him a sentence from the film Forrest Gump, which the Forest’s girlfriend says: ‘No matter what you do, do not try to be brave and a hero, just run away.’ I kept worrying that something would happen to him…” Merom’s friends at Golani remembered him fondly, “he did everything quietly, with restraint – even with a smile.” At the end of the course Merom was assigned to the auxiliary company, and immediately found himself in the occupied territories, fighting with his comrades. The days of terror of the al-Aqsa Intifada, and the streets of Israel were washed with the blood of the victims. In the “Black March” of 2002, more than 100 Israelis, civilians and soldiers were murdered in terrible terror attacks, and hundreds were wounded. On the eve of the Passover holiday, during the last week of his life, the Israeli government decided to launch Operation Defensive Shield to attack the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure in Judea and Samaria. Merom took part in an operation in Ramallah and immediately went up to the Mount Dov area with his unit to the Mount Dov area, where he was alerted On Thursday, 4 February 2002. Merom left for the weekend, to join the fighting in Jenin: “I hugged him and hugged him and hugged him,” Giora said, “and I’m not a mystic, but hey I have the feeling that this is it. Then my wife made him sandwiches and we both went with a really tragic feeling. When we parted at the Kastina junction, we looked at each other, and Merom, who saw the horror on my face, smiled sweetly and said ironically: ‘We have lost Eretz Yisroel in agony.’ “Before he fell, Merom came out with a feeling that his death was near. Of friends abroad and asked him to inform them, in case he did not return, that he was killed. To the second, Merom left a moving message on his cell phone: ‘You know that if something happens to me, I love you the most in the world.'” Merom fell in battle in Jenin on Friday, April 5, 2002, at the age of nineteen. A few hours earlier he had spoken with his family for the last time. “At eleven in the morning he called me from Jenin and I heard shots in the background,” recalled Giora. “I told him, ‘I hope that you remain in ‘an armored combat vehicle’ and he said, ‘Dad, I cannot promise you.’ That was our last conversation. ” After his fall Merom was raised to the rank of sergeant. He was laid to rest on Sunday, 7 April 2002, at the cemetery in Moshav Avigdor, the moshav where he grew up and loved. Survived by his parents, two brothers – Yair, age twenty-two and twelve-year-old Gilead, his two girlfriends, and Flame, his beloved dog, still waiting for him to return. On his tombstone, the words were engraved: “You shall know your way, you shall love the passerby, and you shall give light.” “To every man there is a name,” wrote the poet Zelda, “which was given to him by his father and mother,” and to you the name Merom, in memory of his Grandmother Miriam of Avigdor, and you filled your special name with magic, beauty, smiling. David Hassin, principal of the high school at Beer Tuvia High School: “Merom’s fall in the storm of the battle in Jenin opened a deep wound in our hearts. Merom was a very gifted teacher who represented in his education the aspirations of every parent and educator. When he enlisted in the IDF, Merom did not seek to fulfill himself, but again, simply and modestly, to give of himself … With great justice, Giora repeats the sentence “I am so proud of him.” Giora, who had a bad heart, tried to say that perhaps the IDF should take more care of soldiers than the enemy’s citizens. Merom’s response was, “Dad, is not it right for you, to hurt innocent women and children? “I see in this response the supreme essence of the education that Merom absorbed in his parents’ home. It means: Yes, I am willing to risk my life for the values I believe in and for which I was educated. … Merom’s voice is the voice of sanity, the voice of humanity, the voice of hope that reverberates in the circle of explosions and hell … “In the pain of bereavement, Giora, Marom’s father, became a poet and has quickly become one of the strongest expressions of bereavement in Israeli poetry.
